SB    57    lEfl 


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One  (toss 


A  SCOI 


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teLortb 


GIFT  OF 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
RKELEY,  CALIFORNI 


THE  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 


DONATED 

KATHERJNE  TINGLEY 


The   Plough   and   the   Cross 


A    Story    of    New    Ireland 


by 


William     Patrick     O'Ryan 


The  Aryan  Theosophical  Press 

Point  Loma,  California 

1910 


COPYRIGHT,  1910,  BY  KATHERINE  TINGLEY 


THE  ARYAN  THEOSOPHICAL  PRESS 
Point  Loma,  California 


DONATED  BY 
KATHER1NE  TINQL5Y 


INTRODUCTION 

IT  is  at  once  a  pleasure  and  a  privilege  to  aid  in  making 
this  beautiful  and  stirring  tale,  which  appeared  in  The 
Irish  Nation  recently,  more  widely  known. 

A  story  of  real  life  in  Ireland  —  in  the  deepest  sense, 
as  well  as  in  the  usual  one  —  it  elucidates  certain  heart- 
problems  in  social  and  religious  life  with  a  candor,  charm, 
and  fearlessness,  and  with  so  tender  a  restraint  and  sym 
pathy,  that  it  can  hardly  fail  to  be  regarded  as  a  wholly 
unique  contribution  to  modern  thought. 

More  than  one  actual  initiation  into  the  real  meaning 
and  purpose  of  human  life  is  subtly  and  exquisitely  de 
picted  here  — the  outcome  of  those  stern  yet  joyful  ex 
periences  which  must  come  sooner  or  later  to  all  true 
hearts  that  toil  nobly  and  unselfishly  for  the  uplift  of 
social  and  national  life. 

NK  TINGI^Y 


312703 


CONTENTS 

PAGE: 
THE  EDITOR  OF  "  FAINNE  AN  LAE  "  ESCAPES  TO 

ENCHANTMENT      1 

A  THEOSOPHICAL  STORMY  PETREL     11 

THE  GREAT  NOVELIST  SAYS  GOOD-BYE     16 

THE  WISTFUL  PAGAN  AND  THE  HELL  OF  SUCCESS  25 

THE  NEW  ADAM  OUTSIDE  MAYNOOTH     36 

ELSIE  O'KENNEDY  AND  THE  CLOUD-SWEEPER     ...  46 

AN  ARISTOCRATIC  IMMANENTIST      58 

ARTHUR  O'MARA  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN     69 

AN  T-ATHAIR  MAIRTIN,  THE  MAYNOOTH  CRISIS, 

AND  MAEVE  IN  A  NEW  LIGHT     76 

LORD  STRATHBARRA  OFFENDS  AND  is  FORGIVEN     . .  91 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  A  FAIRY  SKY-LARK     97 

PARIS  OR  THE  HEBRIDES  ?     108 

THE  "  VITA  NOVA  "  IN  THE  BOYNE  VALLEY    116 

THE  PRIESTS'  STOCKBROKER  WITH  THE  SOCIAL 

CONSCIENCE      134 

FERGUS  O'HAGAN  is  INTRODUCED  TO  HIMSELF     ...  143 

THE  HOUR  OF  THE  WHITE  FROCK     %. .  151 

A  COUNCIL  AT  CLUAINLUMNEY     161 

THE  LEAGUE  OF  PROGRESSIVE  PRIESTS  180 


THE:  PROMISE  OF  ELSIE;     188 

MR.  MILLIGAN'S  CROWNING  SCHEME     198 

THE  Two  STANDARDS     204 

MAEVE  AND  ELSIE  COMPARE  NOTES     218 

LOVE'S  CAPTURED  HAT     23 1 

MAEVE'S  QUEST,  ELSIE'S  APOLOGIA  AND 

INDICTMENT        239 

ELSIE  AND  A  SENSATION      248 

"  O  THE  TEARS  AND  THE  GREAT  INANITIES  OF 

THINGS!"     257 

DESERTERS  FROM  EDEN     264 

TENANTS-AT-WILL  IN  THE  WORLD     274 

BOLTS  FROM  THE  BLUE     285 

FERGUS  O'HAGAN  MAKES  UP  His  MIND     295 

THE  BISHOP  OF  DUN  NA  RIOGH     300 

MR.  MORTIMER  AND  THE  PIT  —  MAYNOOTH  AT 

THE   CROSS-ROADS      313 

A  FLANK  MOVEMENT     328 

TRANSITION  AND  TRIAL     334 

DIVINE  SOULS  IN  THE  SLUMS     347 

A  CRISIS  OF  HEART  AND  MAEVE'S  DEDUCTION     .  .  361 

THE  SLUMS,  THE  FAIRIES,  AND  THE  MOONLIT 

SANDS  BY  THE  SEA  367 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

THE;  BOYNE  AT  NAVAN     FRONTISPIECE 

KIUJNEY  HII.IV     37 

BAIU,E  NA  BOINNE     96 

WHERE  THE  POOR  LIVE    117 

THE  BOYNE  VAI^EY     189 

TARA      238 

How  THE  POOR  LIVE     256 

NEAR  CivUAiNivUMNEY     284 

GOING  TO  MARKET     301 

AT  ATHLUMNEY  346 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  EDITOR  otf     FAINNE  AN  LAE     ESCAPES  TO 
ENCHANTMENT 

HE  noisy  crowds  within  or  without 
the  public-houses  in  the  Dublin  slum- 
streets  took  no  notice  of  the  fiddler 
who  came  after  nightfall  and  played 
his  country  tunes,  merry,  plaintive, 
and  tender,  as  the  spirit  moved  him. 
At  last,  when  he  was  tired  of  tramp 
ing  and  playing,  he  walked  away 
slowly  in  the  direction  of  the  quays. 
When  he  met  ragged  children  who 
begged,  and  women  —  with  babies  in 
their  arms  —  who  also  begged,  he  wearily  and  silently 
handed  them  pennies  —  none  of  which  were  the  proceeds 
of  his  fiddling,  but  simply  loose  coin  of  his  own.  He 
raised  his  hat  as  he  came  to  a  large  and  stately  church, 
now  dark  and  silent.  Then  he  paused  for  a  few  moments 
beside  the  railings  and  looked  back  in  the  direction  of  the 
noisy,  flaring  public-houses  and  the  sordid  streets,  shook 
his  head  gloomily,  and  passed  on. 

A  walk  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour  brought  him  to  a  narrow 
business  street  that  had  no  sign  or  stir  of  life  in  the  night. 


2  .  THIS    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

He  took  out  a  key,  opened  a  door,  which  contained  a 
panel  bearing  in  Irish  characters  the  name  Fainnc  an  Lac 
("The  Dawn  of  the  Day") — a  romantic  name  for  a 
newspaper,  but  then  it  was  the  chief  organ  of  a  new  move 
ment.  He  passed  upstairs,  and  opened  a  door  on  which 
was  painted,  in  Irish  characters  also,  Seonira  an  Hagar- 
thora  (the  Editor's  Room).  He  lit  the  gas,  put  away  the 
old  riddle,  also  the  old  coat  and  hat  he  had  been  wearing, 
substituting  for  the  former  the  habitual  daily  one  which 
hung  on  the  rack  behind  the  desk.  In  this  he  locked  away 
the  false  beard,  of  which  he  now  divested  himself.  Fergus 
O'Hagan  looked  very  unlike  a  street  musician  when  he 
had  done  so.  He  was  tall  and  athletic,  but  curiously 
boyish-looking  and  rosy-cheeked  for  one  who  was  well 
advanced  in  the  thirties.  He  had  blue  eyes,  wondering 
and  questioning,  and  a  little  uncanny  when  they  suddenly 
lit  up,  as  they  had  a  habit  of  doing.  His  garb  had  traces 
of  an  American  style,  though  with  a  certain  daintiness, 
almost  fastidiousness.  His  hair  was  distinctive,  inasmuch 
as  it  seemed  to  stand  on  end  gracefully.  The  salient  im 
pression  he  conveyed  was  one  of  alertness  and  good  hu 
mor  with  life.  He  did  not  look  like  an  editor  or  a  fiddler 
in  slum-land  —  neither  of  whose  roles  is  at  all  conducive 
to  good  humor  or  to  sunniness  of  spirit. 

He  remembered  that  the  hour  of  the  night  post  was 
past ;  he  took  a  small  key  from  the  desk,  went  to  the  front, 
and  opened  the  letter-box.  He  came  back  with  a  bundle  of 
newspapers  and  envelopes  of  various  sizes.  He  sorted  the 
letters  slowly,  in  some  cases  with  a  trace  of  weariness ;  he 
appeared  to  realize  from  the  superscriptions  the  measure 
of  interest,  or  the  lack  thereof,  in  the  communications 


AN  ESCAPE  TO  ENCHANTMENT  3 

underneath.  The  one  he  opened  at  last,  with  a  certain 
enkindling  of  the  eyes,  was  a  bulky  missive,  whose  en 
velope  bore  the  Maynooth  postmark.  He  found  a  private 
letter  and  a  review,  or  rather  causcrie,  dealing  with  a  new 
book  by  a  distinguished  Jesuit.  He  had  read  the  book 
himself,  and  it  had  astonished  and  somewhat  disturbed 
him  at  first;  for  able,  reverent  and  philosophical  as  it 
was,  its  conclusions  were  not  those  of  Catholicism  as  he 
had  so  far  understood  it;  but  as  it  proceeded  there  was 
no  denying  its  appeal  to  the  heart  and  the  spiritual  sense. 
He  was  struck  by  the  deep  and  almost  gladsome  measure 
of  sympathy  with  which  the  Maynooth  professor  reviewed 
it,  though  expressing  a  sort  of  qualified  dissent  from  its 
more  daring  conclusions.  The  accompanying  letter  was 
enlightening.  The  writer  said  that  he  was  disposed  to  go 
farther  in  appreciation  and  agreement,  though  not  quite 
so  far  as  some  of  his  friends  in  the  college,  but  he  thought 
the  time  was  not  ripe  for  absolute  definiteness.  The  great 
modern  task  of  freeing  Catholicism  in  Ireland  from  form 
alism  and  literalism,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  patronage 
or  forgetfulness  of  the  poor  rather  than  love  of  them,  on 
the  other,  and  making  it  a  profoundly  moving  and  enlight 
ening  spiritual  and  social  force  again,  demanded  the  most 
subtle  delicacy  as  well  as  courage.  Bold  were  the  courses 
sometimes  suggested  and  urged  in  his  quarter  of  May 
nooth,  but  the  bishops  could  meet  them  at  present  with  a 
deadly  counter-stroke.  As  things  stood  their  lordships 
were  uneasy,  if  not  alarmed.  It  was  better  to  sow  ideas, 
and  the  spirit  would  prevail. 

The  letter  branched  away  into  personal  matters,  treat 
ing  of  some  points  which  Fergus  had  discussed  with  the 


4  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

professor  on  the  last  occasion  of  their  meeting  —  at 
Maynooth  itself  during  the  production  of  an  Irish  play. 
Crushed  towards  the  close  of  the  crowded  sheet  was  a 
piece  of  information  that  made  him  start :  "  It  has  been 
decided  that  poor  Arthur  O'Mara  has  no  '  voco/  He 
has  got  'cats'  at  last.  His  first  offense  was  saying  that 
St.  Patrick  was  never  in  Rome,  and  that  anyone  who 
knew  Church  history  understood  that  it  did  not  matter. 
His  second  was  the  declaration  that  the  most  brilliant 
thing  ever  done  by  the  Irish  priests  was  the  invention 
of  the  legend  that  they  had  been  always  on  the  side  of 
the  people.  And  the  third  was  the  reading  of  The 
Descent  of  Man!  There  is  great  indignation  over  his 
fate,  but  it  would  be  dangerous  tactics  to  make  a  stand 
on  what  would  be  made  out  to  be  a  matter  of  college 
discipline.  The  Maynooth  Movement,  which  will  give 
new  life  to  Ireland  —  of  all  creeds  —  must  be  based  on  a 
grand,  unmistakably  spiritual  issue.  Meanwhile  continue 
on  your  own  splendid  and  tactful  track;  as  enthusiastic 
as  you  can  be  on  the  language  movement  and  everything 
national,  sympathetic  but  guarded  in  your  treatment  of 
the  Liberal  Catholic  movement  —  interpreting  the  thing 
but  not  using  the  term  too  insistently.  Our  grandfathers 
dreaded  ghosts ;  we  of  this  generation  dread  names." 

The  news  about  Arthur  O'Mara  was  grave.  Fergus 
was  puzzled  at  first  over  the  strange  term  "  cats,"  but 
remembered  that  it  was  a  free-and-easy  designation 
amongst  Maynooth  students  for  three  severe  reprimands, 
the  third  entailing  dismissal  from  the  college.  Arthur 
was  a  friend  of  his  own,  a  young  man  of  ability  and  high, 
if  not  well-ordered,  enthusiasm,  but  somewhat  unreserved 


AN  ESCAPE;  TO  ENCHANTM&N?  5 

in  the  expression  of  his  native  frankness  and  ardor,  in 
which  he  used  to  say  he  had  the  high  example  of  the 
Hehrew  prophets.  To  what  on  earth  would  he  return 
now? 

Fergus  closed  the  office,  walked  to  O'Connell  Bridge, 
and  went  on  the  top  of  a  Dalkey  tram.  From  Merrion 
onward  there  were  alluring  glimpses  of  the  Bay  in.  the 
clear  summer  night,  hut  for  the  most  part  he  communed 
with  himself  and  seemed  ill  at  ease.  .  .  . 

The  little  Irish-speaking  cailin  aim  sire*  from  Aran, 
who  brought  him  supper,  told  him  that  the  bean  og  a' 
tighc  (his  sister,  who  kept  house  for  him)  had  retired  to 
rest.  There  were  occasions,  thrice  a  year  or  so,  when 
Miss  Maeve  O'Hagan  retired  before  2  a.  m.,  and  he  was 
glad  this  was  one  of  them.  He  would  be  bound  to  tell 
her  the  news  about  Arthur  O'Mara,  and  he  was  not  in 
the  mood  for  disputation  to-night.  For  disputation  there 
would  surely  be.  She  would  condemn  Arthur  with  all 
the  intensity  of  St.  Catherine  of  Siena  at  her  intensest. 
Miss  Maeve  was  beautiful,  brilliant,  exceedingly  kind- 
hearted,  but  sensitive  and  inclined  to  be  tempestuous  over 
spiritual  and  ecclesiastical  matters.  She  criticised  eccle 
siastics  —  at  least  the  younger  ones  —  and  their  regula 
tions  herself,  but  she  denied  the  privilege  to  all  others. 
Fergus  retired  with  a  relieved  feeling  to  the  study  —  so 
called  mainly  because  it  was  the  one  room  in  the  house  in 
which  he  was  allowed  to  smoke.  .  .  . 

Long  after  midnight  he  was  seated,  pen  in  hand,  at  his 
quaint  little  table,  but  the  pen  moved  slowly  over  the 
pages.  Yet  the  vivid  and  lively  young  lady  to  whom  he 

*  Domestic   helper   or   servant. 


6  THE;  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

wrote,  though  as  far  away  as  Paris,  was  wont  to  awaken 
airy  moods  and  inspire  much  light-hearted  correspond 
ence  on  his  part.  Elsie  O'Kennedy  inspired  light-hearted- 
ness  in  most  human  beings  within  her  sphere  of  influence, 
but  to  her  cousin  Fergus,  who  had  been  a  somewhat  irre 
sponsible  guardian  of  her  childhood,  she  was  a  curious 
combination  of  elf  and  confidant  —  all  the  more  easy  to 
confide  in  as,  despite  her  buoyant  humanity,  she  seemed 
to  belong  half  to  fairyland. 

"After  a  struggle  with  distracting  (and  some  gloomy) 
imps  and  spirits,  I  have  escaped  from  prison,"  he  wrote. 
"  I  have  got  back  to  enchantment.  An  hour  or  two  ago, 
when  I  returned  from  town  and  office  and  '  slumming,' 
I  was  in  an  evil  temper  with  myself  and  destiny.  It 
seemed  hard  to  see  clearly  or  to  make  anything  noble  out 
of  life.  You  see  our  imaginations  are  made  for  eternity 
and  the  infinite,  our  bodies  for  this  bonded  trial-ground 
in  time  and  place,  and  there  must  be  clash  and  confusion 
at  times.  It  is  now  past  midnight,  and  from  my  silent 
study  I  am  pleased  to  report  to  you  that  the  universe  is 
enkindled  again.  I  would  like  above  all  things  a  chat 
with  your  airy  and  enchanting  self.  But  you  are  in  Paris, 
and  I  am  bounded  by  that  slum  of  wonderland  called 
Dublin  —  '  Paris  grown  old  and  ugly,'  as  she  was  called 
by  one  of  those  candid  Frenchmen  you  dislike. 

44  Failing  the  chat  with  you,  I  want  an  enchanted  island 
far  out  tb  sea.  There,  undisturbed  and  undistracted,  I 
could  review  and  explore  myself,  and  prepare  for  the 
drama  which  I  feel  to  be  moving  towards  its  crisis  in 
Ireland.  I  feel  that  I  have  changed  momentously  of  late, 
that  I  am  not  at  all  the  same  person  who  worked  for  some 


AN    ESCAPE    TO    ENCHANTMENT  7 

years  in  New  York,  for  a  few  years  in  London,  and  for 
a  year  in  Paris.  The  stress  of  the  three  civilizations  — 
American,  British,  and  French  —  should  have  made  me 
insensitive  to  surprises,  but  my  short  new  spell  in  my 
apparently  simpler  native  land  is  shaking  me  up,  in  your 
own  racy  phrase,  quite  dramatically.  I  seem  to  come 
nearer,  far  nearer,  to  realities  —  intellectual  and  racial, 
as  in  the  Gaelic  League;  sordid,  as  in  the  slums  (which 
have  a  morbid  fascination  for  me)  ;  and  of  the  soil  and 
Nature,  as  when  I  help  in  our  '  Garden  City  '  scheme  by 
the  Boyne.  And  here  —  in  '  New  Ireland,'  in  the  slums, 
and  in  the  Boyne  Valley  —  are  three  widely  different 
worlds  that  know  each  other  not.  I  am  drawn  to  all, 
and  do  not  quite  belong  to  any ;  for  my  natural  business 
is  to  weave  dreams  into  songs  in  the  day  of  a  placid, 
reverent  and  human  civilization.  I  am  an  artist  (I  think) 
who  has  been  guilty  of  the  grave  indiscretion  of  journal 
ism.  Perhaps  you  may  think  from  the  spirit  of  Fainne 
an  Lac,  of  which  organ  of  a  movement  I  have  by  so 
curious  a  chain  of  circumstances  become  editor,  that 
Ireland  is  steadily  becoming  placid,  reverent  and  human. 
I  try  to  keep  the  best  side  foremost,  but  my  fear  is  ever 
growing  that  revolution  and  strife  are  before  us.  The 
Maynooth  Movement  —  the  crusade  which  the  bolder 
professors  are  entertaining  —  is  certain  for  one  thing, 
unless  subtly  advanced,  to  lead  to  profound  agitatioii  i.nci 
unrest  in  a  country  like  ours  where  folklore  '  senti 
mentality  have  usurped  for  generations  the  pla*  u.  phil 
osophy.  And  how  will  medieval  bishops  meet  the  modern 
mind,  confronting  them  unexpectedly  in  a  land  all  whose 
questionings  they  have  quieted  so  far  with  a  little  innocent 


8  THE   PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

flattery  and  a  courtly  wave  of  the  hand,  or  with  occasional 
blow  and  dramatic  anathema  ?  And  how  will  they  —  the 
great,  disguised  pillars  of  the  British  edifice  in  Ireland, 
meet  a  young  generation  of  priests  and  laymen  who  are 
determined  to  be  logically  and  unbendingly  national  ? 
Today,  unknown  to  the  '  audience/  we  are  in  the  throes 
of  the  first  act  of  the  drama,  and  the  end  —  not  even 
the  chief  actors  know. 

"  You  ask  me  for  more  light  on  Dublin  and  on  Ire 
land  ?  Which  of  them  ?  There  are  dozens.  In  the  slums, 
and  in  other  places  and  ways,  I  see  a  hundred  things  and 
traits  which  show  how  far  man  has  fallen,  not  only  from 
Eden  and  his  highest  nature,  but  from  practical  Christi 
anity,  into  savagery  and  spiritual  and  social  inertia  and 
chaos.  It  oppresses  me  and  makes  me  angry,  but  anger 
is  very  degrading  and  wasteful  to  the  soul.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  part  of  our  mainly  Pagan  (in  the  bad  sense) 
and  imitative  city  in  which  I  mostly  move,  has  much  that 
is  fascinating  to  show  for  itself.  It  is  a  small  part,  but 
its  passion  to  be  Irish  and  human  gives  it  largeness  and 
originality.  An  ignored  and  forgotten  civilization  seems 
in  process  of  rebirth,  and  if  some  of  the  manifestations 
are  extravagant,  more  are  certainly  beautiful.  As  to 
Ireland  generally,  it  suggests  a  poet-prophet's  mind  in  the 
body  of  a  sluggard  that  often  gets  drunk  and  violent. 
There  are  young  men  and  women  —  those  in  whom  the 
dormant  spirit  of  the  old  civilization  has  revived  —  who 
enlarge  one's  faith  in  humanity.  Others  seem  the  mater 
ialized  and  comatose  remnant  of  a  once  intellectual  and 
earnest  race.  The  pioneers  of  Gaeldom  and  the  prophets 
of  the  Maynooth  Movement  have  their  work  before  them. 


AN    KSCAPE    TO    ENCHANTMENT  9 

They  need  the  fervor  of  Isaiah,  the  simplicity  of  Patrick, 
and  the  endurance  of  Sisyphus. 

"All  this  may  mystify  you  and  seem  a  contradiction 
to  the  spirit  of  enthusiasm  and  advance  that  you  find 
expressed  in  the  pages  of  Fainne  an  Lae.  Yet  both 
phases  are  sincere  and  real.  With  all  your  own  enchant 
ing  mind-play,  into  what  somber  solemnity  of  spirit  you 
can  shrink  and  sink  occasionally !  I  wonder  if  skylarks 
are  ever  gloomily  pessimistic  before  the  dawn?" 

When  Fergus  had  written  thus  far  he  laid  down  his 
pen  and  read  over  the  pages.  They  did  not  please  him, 
though  the  convictions  were  sincere  enough.  It  struck 
him  that  he  must  be  getting  painfully  serious,  to  write 
in  such  a  strain  and  style  to  Elsie,  who  treated  his  graver 
moods  with  the  sprightliest  playfulness.  He  pictured  the 
elfin  gaiety  of  her  face,  the  delicate  raillery  of  her  com 
ment  as  she  read  his  epistle,  and  he  felt  a  little  dubious 
and  disconcerted  and  even  absurd  to  himself.  But  he 
knew  the  golden  store  of  sympathy  and  understanding 
that  her  Gaelic-Gallic  piquancy  could  not  hide,  and  the 
disconcerted  mood  passed.  Still  he  felt  it  would  never 
do  to  continue  in  that  strain  to  Elsie. 

When  he  resumed  his  letter  it  was  in  Irish.  He  had  to 
write  simply,  for  Elsie,  who  wrote  French  and  English 
so  briskly,  was  not  yet  adept  in  the  home  language ;  but 
he  found  very  quickly  that  he  could  not  keep  to  vexatious 
problems  of  Dublin  and  "  lonesome  latter  years  "  at  all. 
He  found  spirit  and  fancy  flying  to  sunny  fields  and  morn 
ing  lands,  biding  now  amongst  homely  interests  of  the 
days  in  the  South  ere  either  emigrated,  anon  skipping  to 
fairyland  and  the  Golden  Age.  When  he  read  over  those 


io  THE;  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

easily  and  gaily  written  pages  at  the  close,  it  was  with  a 
sense  of  surprise  and  wonder  and  the  feeling  of  a  certain 
renewal  of  youth.  He  felt  instinctively  that  they  would 
appeal  to  the  heart  and  mind  of  Elsie;  already  their 
spirits  seemed  to  have  been  brought  nearer  in  a  clear, 
new  world.  He  began  to  wonder  if  there  was  something 
deeper  in  the  Irish  language  mission  than  he  or  anyone 
else  had  yet  realized ;  also  if  some  theories  of  his 
friends  about  making  the  Gaelic  more  modern  and  up- 
to-date  were  all  that  they  seemed.  Somehow,  when  the 
mind  and  pen  turned  to  Irish,  modernity  and  vexation 
had  a  way  of  evaporating;  it  almost  looked  as  if  the  Gael 
had  no  modern  times  and  no  Middle  Age ;  it  was  always 
the  morning  or  the  evening  of  life  —  the  childhood  of  the 
world,  or  its  Golden  Age. 

He  arose,  sealed  the  letter,  and  walked  up  and  down 
the  study  for  a  long  time.  When  he  sat  down  again  he 
took  up  a  primitive-looking  briar  pipe  and  began  to 
smoke.  It  struck  him  suddenly  as  absurd  and  incongru 
ous  that  things  so  material  and  plain  as  a  pipe  and  tobacco 
should  have  become  so  necessary  to  the  intellectual  com 
fort  of  a  being  with  the  pretensions  of  man.  So  much 
from  the  standpoint  of  pure  reason.  It  was  certain, 
however,  that  they  added  a  fine  flavor  to  the  magic  of 
the  mood  into  which  he  had  drifted.  It  was  splendid 
anti-climax,  an  ironically  fascinating  culmination  of  the 
wonder-sense,  this  having  to  peer  into  a  pipe-bowl  for 
part  of  the  explanation  of  the  august  enigma,  Man! 


CHAPTER  II 

A    THEOSOPHICAL    STORMY 


ISS  Maeve  O'Hagan  looked  beauti 
ful  but  frosty  at  breakfast.  Her 
sweet  severity  was  ominous.  Fer 
gus,  when  he  caught  the  cold  gleam 
under  her  pince-nez,  thought  it 
was  well  to  defer  all  reference  to 
Arthur  O'Mara  and  Maynooth. 
He  had  a  weakness  for  putting  off 
disagreeable  matters,  and  shrank 
from  discords.  He  felt  sure  that 
Maeve's  coldness  had  some  con 
cern  with  ecclesiastical  affairs,  curates  most  likely ;  hardly 
anything  else  put  her  out  of  temper.  She  did  not  get  on 
very  well  at  times  with  the  younger  clergy ;  in  fact,  few 
men  under  the  rank  of  Canon  or  Monsignor  came  up  to 
her  ideal  of  dignity. 

When,  after  a  long  silence  which  might  be  felt,  she 
looked  at  Fergus  like  an  accusing  spirit  and  said  with 
icy  severity :  "  Some  of  the  young  men  coming  out  of 
Maynooth  will  be  the  ruin  of  the  Church,"  he  knew  that 
she  had  been  hurt  in  her  most  tender  spot.  He  waited 
patiently  for  details. 


12  THE)    PLOUGH    AND   THK    CROSS 

"  I  met  young  Father last  evening.  He  was  as 

irresponsible  as  ever.  He  had  the  cheek  to  say  that  the 
Church  is  leaving  all  fine  art  and  poetry  to  the  Pagans. 
He  was  cynical  about  the  publications  of  the  Irish  Catholic 
Truth  Society,  and  said  the  clergy  should  speak  out  about 
the  cult  of  St.  Anthony.  The  Sisters  at  —  -  he  called 
'  hen-brained  females  ' !  " — 

"  He  did  not  mean  it,"  said  Fergus  soothingly.  "  We 
Irish  are  so  reverent  that  we  can  toy  with  the  language 
of  seeming  irreverence  without  being  misunderstood. 
The  Pope  himself  is  pictured  racily  in  some  of  our  folk 
lore.  Besides,  in  regard  to  brains  —  which  are  not  every 
thing  —  you  have  come  to  expect  too  much.  Nature  in 
the  matter  of  brains  could  not  afford  to  dower  all  women, 
and  a  good  many  men,  as  liberally  as  she  has  dowered 
yourself  and  Cousin  Elsie  —  to  whom,  by  the  way,  I 
have  written  a  long  letter." 

Maeve  was  by  no  means  mollified.   • 

"  The  pedestal  on  which  you  set  that  girl  is  preposter 
ous,"  she  said.  "  She  was  a  delightful  child,  but  she  is 
becoming  spoiled.  Paris  is  making  her  absurdly  flippant. 
In  her  last  letter  she  wrote  like  a  young  curate  on  a 
holiday." 

It  was  plain  that  the  clouds  in  Miss  Maeve's  mental 
sky  were  blacker  than  usual.  In  all  such  moods  she  was 
particularly  severe  with  those  she  loved  most  —  the  con 
trast  to  her  usual  charm  was  piquant  —  but  the  discovery 
of  flippancy  in  Elsie  O'Kennedy  was  "  beyond  the  be- 
yonds."  Fergus  tried  to  talk  about  the  weather  and 
household  affairs. 

It  was  hard  to  turn  city-ward  when  he  went  outside. 


A    THEOSOPHICAI,    STORMY    PETREL  13 

The  morning  was  enchanting.  Over  the  Bay  and  the  hills 
he  felt  a  sense  of  something  indefinably  alluring  as  if  the 
world  were  re-created  and  young,  or  Nature  on  the  tremu 
lous  verge  of  unfolding  the  magic  of  age-held  secrets. 
He  felt  a  call  to  the  hills  and  the  sea,  hard  for  the  spirit 
to  resist.  There  lay  dreams  and  divinity.  He  looked 
longingly  as  he  went  office-ward,  to  those  soft-tinted, 
appealing  hills  of  Dublin  and  Wicklow,  and  thought  what 
a  day  of  potential  beauty  and  reverie  they  held.  In  the 
old  folk-stories  one  stepped  casually  out  of  the  most 
ordinary  day,  off  the  commonest  pathway,  into  woods  of 
wizardry,  places  of  spells,  the  grim  tasks  and  tragic 
triumphs  of  giant-land.  Just  by  turning  to  the  hills  this 
radiant  morning  of  the  twentieth  century  he  also  could 
enter  a  wonderland,  and  one  more  akin  than  these  to  his 
own  nature.  Why  men  with  souls  condemned  themselves 
to  the  wasting,  unproductive  slavery  of  offices,  every  hour 
marking  a  deterioration  of  heart  and  spirit,  till  exhaus 
tion,  impotence,  and  degrading  pessimism  were  their  lot 
by  nightfall  —  what  tragedian  of  the  ages  had  conceived 
or  unfolded  such  a  tragedy  as  this  ?  .  .  . 

When  the  stress  and  detail  of  his  day  were  done  he  was 
tired  indeed,  and  far  from  the  delicate,  divine  kingdom 
that  called  from  the  mountains  in  the  morning.  But  the 
day  had  not  been  as  other  days. 

It  was  curious  that  it  should  have  brought  him  letters 
from  two  remarkable  women  friends,  of  strangely  differ 
ent  characters  and  temperaments,  and  located  at  the 
moment  in  different  continents.  He  was  charmed  to  hear 
from  one ;  interested  at  first,  but  quickly  embarrassed 
and  disturbed  to  hear  from  the  other.  In  a  message  brief 


14  THE  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

and  blithe,  Elsie  O'Kennedy  unfolded  the  tidings  that  she 
hoped  to  spend  a  holiday  in  Dublin  ere  the  summer  ended. 
She  was  delightfully  and  characteristically  vague  as  to 
details,  but  the  news  was  magical. 

Miss  Alice  Lefanu  wrote  from  California,  in  a  strain 
intense  and  earnest  like  her  character.  She  reminded 
Fergus  of  their  friendship  of  some  ten  years  before,  in 
New  York,  when  she  was  passing  through  a  deep  mental 
and  religious  crisis.  She  had  found  solace  and  the  key 
to  all  that  baffled  her,  in  Theosophy,  and  had  spent  a 
number  of  the  years  since  then  at  the  great  home  and 
center  of  the  order  at  Point  Loma,  where  such  inspiring 
and  many-sided  work  was  done.  She  had  often  wondered, 
she  said,  how  and  where  he  fared,  and  had  longed  to  meet 
him  again,  for  she  felt  from  the  first  that  their  spirits 
were  akin ;  but  the  world  seemed  to  have  swallowed  him. 
A  note  in  their  magazine  on  his  paper  and  his  work  had 
at  last  afforded  her  the  long-coveted  tidings,  at  a  time 
significantly  enough,  when  she  was  preparing  to  go  to 
Ireland  on  a  visit  that  would  probably  be  prolonged.  She 
had  long  felt,  she  confided,  incidentally,  that  Ireland 
would  prove  peculiarly  receptive  of  the  truths  of  the 
Ancient  Wisdom,  if  only  these  truths  were  sympathetic 
ally  and  fairly  presented  to  her.  Ireland  seemed  to  be 
dying  of  formalism  and  pessimism  —  without  a  vision  the 
people  perish,  and  it  would  be  glorious  to  renew  the 
vision.  Ireland  was  paralysed  by  the  fear  of  Hell-fire  — 
it  had  made  her  own  childhood  a  horror  —  which  the 
materialized  folk-lore  proclivities  of  the  people  had  in 
tensified  for  their  imaginations  until  they  were  terrorized. 
Her  first  work  in  Dublin,  which  she  hoped  to  reach  not 


A    THEOSOPHICAI,    STORMY    PETREL  15 

very  much  later  than  her  letter,  would  be  largely  con 
cerned  with  this  literally  and  figuratively  infernal  theme. 
She  counted  on  his  aid  with  confidence. 

Miss  Lefanu  he  knew  to  be  a  striking  and  strong  mind 
ed  woman,  mentally  fearless  if  not  reckless.  He  also 
admitted  her  personal  attraction,  and  did  not  like  it.  He 
had  formed  the  conviction  that  in  the  case  of  reformers 
and  idealists  the  eternal  feminine  is  best  at  a  distance. 
He  made  an  exception  in  the  case  of  Elsie;  she  was 
sisterly,  enchanting,  and  seemed  to  have  come  out  of 
fairyland.  Miss  Lefanu  had  overmuch  modern  unrest 
and  intellectuality  superimposed  on,  or  shot  through,  her 
primitive  passion  —  Fergus  of  course  recalled  her  as  he 
had  known  her  in  the  earlier  decade  —  though  her  char 
acter  had  gracious  human  traits. 

But  her  mission  to  Ireland !  The  summer  would  surely 
see  drama.  How  Maeve  would  receive  the  ambassadress, 
and  what  his  Maynooth  friends  would  think  of  her  — 
reviewing  these  things  he  went  home  in  a  brown  study. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    GREAT    NOVELIST    SAYS    GOOD-BYE 


:ERGUS  O'HAGAN  sent  the  last  pages  of 
Fainne  an  Lae  to  press  in  the  radiant 
summer  morning,  and  cursed,  in  a  mild 
way,  the  fates  that  preside  over  news 
papers,  official  and  unofficial.  He  had  put 
his  heart  into  the  work  more  than  ever, 
and  leaders,  causeries,  and  even  notes,  as 
he  wrote  them  seemed  vital  and  true.  He  had 
expressed  his  own  heart  and  mind  as  profoundly 
as  he  could.  Then,  as  he  read  the  proofs  on  the 
evening  before  going  to  press,  the  reaction  came. 
All  seemed  too  intimate,  too  personal,  too  sheer  a  revela 
tion  of  the  inmost  soul  to  the  indifferent  multitude.  The 
feeling  was  torturing.  He  would  like  to  recall  everything, 
and  write  lightly,  impersonally,  superficially,  but  it  was 
too  late;  the  confidences  must  go  forth.  After  he  had 
gone  home,  tired  and  depressed,  another  reaction  came. 
He  spent  a  couple  of  hours  amongst  his  books.  He  read 
some  of  the  letters  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  then  one  of 
Pater's  Appreciations,  a  little  play  of  Maeterlinck's,  and 
lastly  the  first  two  cantos  of  Dante's  Paradiso.  Then 
the  feeling  came  that  the  work  which  he  had  thought 


THE:  GREAT  NOVELIST  SAYS  GOOD-BYE  17 

good  was  only  scrappy  and  cheap.  No  one  could  put 
thought  and  art  into  a  weekly  newspaper;  the  burden  of 
years  of  it  could  only  be  artistic  futility;  the  mind  made 
pieces  of,  day  in  day  out,  for  ephemeral  enthusiasms  and 
transient  ends;  no  spiritual  flowering,  no  artistic  mo 
mentum,  no  golden  harvest  of  thought  well-sown  and 
tended  and  ingathered.  The  artist  within  him  rebelled 
and  was  utterly  ashamed  and  weary  of  the  propagand 
ist.  Now  he  waited  for  the  printed  paper  as  a  criminal 
might  await  the  sure  and  imminent  discovery  of  his 
crime. 

He  heard  hammering  and  shouting  from  the  rear  of 
the  building  downstairs,  which  showed  that  the  exciting 
process  of  "  making  ready  "  for  the  printing  had  begun. 
He  wondered  what  new  internal  ill  would  be  suddenly 
revealed  in  the  antiquated  contrivance  which  those  who 
were  hopeful  about  the  concern  called  a  printing-machine, 
but  which  the  foreman  printer  referred  to  familiarly  as 

"  the  d old  crock."     Fergus  had  already  handed  the 

said  foreman  certain  causeries  and  sketches  in  Irish  and 
English  to  give  out  to  his  men  for  the  setting  of  the  fol 
lowing  week's  paper.  Such  was  the  usual  order — so  soon 
as  a  week's  issue  was  "  through,"  to  get  the  compositors 
at  work  for  the  next.  Otherwise  an  edition  would  never 
be  ready  in  time.  The  ideals  of  the  paper  were  the  most 
advanced  in  Ireland,  but  the  plant  and  the  printers  were 
primitive.  The  foreman,  looking  down  the  case-room  in 
anxious  and  gloomy  moments,  used  to  say :  "  This  is  a 
convalescent  home,  not  a  printing  establishment."  The 
men  never  resented  such  expressions.  Poor  souls,  so  old 
and  tired,  so  tamed  and  disillusioned  were  they,  that  they 


l8  THE   PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

would  scarcely  resent  even  blows.  Verily  the  contrast 
between  the  ideals  and  the  appliances  of  Fainne  an  Lae 
was  exceeding  great. 

However,  Fergus  could  not  help  for  the  present  the 
apostolic  poverty  of  the  establishment,  and  anyhow  he 
thought  it  would  be  no  bad  thing  to  show  Ireland  what 
could  be  done  with  the  most  unpromising  materials. 
Ireland,  he  sometimes  thought,  had  grown  over-genteel; 
she  sat  down  and  groaned  at  the  prospect  of  mean  tasks 
—  as  if  she  felt  that  her  real  destiny  was  to  do  things  in 
the  grand  manner.  All  the  same,  for  his  own  part,  after 
all  his  moods  and  dreams  and  the  questions  he  had  asked 
of  his  soul  and  destiny,  it  seemed  vain  and  humiliating 
to  go  through  life  as  a  mere  editor.  It  was  a  mixture 
of  false  pretenses  and  bathos.  There  was  something 
intellectually  barren  and  artistically  nondescript  about 
an  editor.  A  beggar-man  or  a  ballad-singer  presented  a 
more  distinctive  front  to  the  world. 

He  grew  weary  of  being  weary  and  out  of  tune  with 
life  on  so  lovely  a  morning.  His  thoughts  turned  to  his 
little  farm  in  the  Boyne  Valley.  He  had  eagerly  inter 
ested  himself  in  the  problem  of  bringing  the  people  back 
to  the  land,  and  of  humanizing  and  exalting  life  thereon, 
and  as  part  of  a  wide  and  picturesque  scheme  had  become 
responsible  for  a  charming  little  holding  in  the  valley 
that  was  sacred  of  old  to  the  gods  of  Gaeldom.  He  con 
cluded  that  he  would  go  down  by  the  afternoon  train. 
The  spell  of  the  soil  and  the  glorious  scenery,  and  the 
friends  who  labored  there,  would  recall  the  spirit  to 
itself. 

A  knock  at  the  door  interrupted  his  reverie.     In  re- 


GRFyAT    NOVELIST    SAYS   GOOD-BYE  IQ 

sponse  to  his  cheery  "Tar  isteach!"*  there  entered  no 
less  a  personage  than  Mr.  Geoffrey  Mortimer,  the  famous 
novelist  who  had  mildly  shocked  the  two  continents  in 
which  he  was  read  more  or  less,  and  who  had  greatly 
shocked  his  own  green  isle  where  he  was  not  read  at  all. 
He  would  explain  the  puzzle  himself  by  the  statement  that 
Ireland  imported  distrust  as  raw  material,  and  manufac 
tured  it  into  passionate  prejudice ;  it  was  the  conspicuous 
exception  to  her  general  industrial  policy. 

The  distinguished  visitor  wore  his  habitual  look  of 
ennui  and  solemnity  tempered  by  resignation,  as  if  the 
small  sins  of  Dublin  bored  him,  while  at  the  same  time 
he  understood  that  it  was  beyond  her  power  and  courage 
to  sin  boldly. 

"  Surely,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Geoffrey  in  the  lugu 
brious  tone  but  with  the  quick  energetic  air  that  were 
habitual  with  him  on  such  occasions,  "  surely  you  see 
now  that  this  sort  of  thing  is  not  worth  while.  You  don't 
seriously  mean  to  say  that  you  're  going  to  drag  out  the 
summer  in  Dublin.  Nobody  lives  here  except  those  who 
are  compelled  to  do  so." 

"  I  often  go  down  to  see  my  little  farm  in  Meath,"  said 
Fergus.  "  In  point  of  fact  I  had  decided  to  go  down 
there  this  afternoon.  I  am  tired,  and  want  the  inspira 
tion  of  the  land." 

Geoffrey  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  I  can  understand  a  man  having  one  fad  in  order  to 
kill  time  in  this  hopeless  land,"  he  said ;  "  and  a  weekly 
paper  that  concerns  itself  with  literature  and  thought  in 
so  unliterary  and  so  thoughtless  a  place  as  Dublin  is  an 

*  Come  in ! 


2O  TH£   PLOUGH    AND   THEi    CROSS 

exacting  fad.  To  add  the  burden  of  a  farm,  in  a  land 
where  nobody  tills  or  consumes  home  produce,  is  more 
than  a  fad,  it  is  insanity.  You  are  wasting  your  life  by 
taking  Ireland  seriously.*  The  country  is  dying  before 
your  eyes  through  its  innate  and  unalterable  pessimism. 
The  most  that  a  literary  man  can  do  with  it  is  to  treat 
it  as  a  sort  of  ironic  recreation  ground." 

"  But  even  you  cut  yourself  away  from  Britain  with 
many  solemn  rites  and  interviews  a  couple  of  years  ago, 
and  returned  with  eclat  to  help  Ireland  to  save  her  soul." 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  exclaimed  Geoffrey,  "  didn't  you 
see  through  that?  I  wanted  a  new  sensation,  and  it  was 
easier  to  get  to  Dublin  than  to  Mecca  or  Lhasa." 

"  Oh,  now  you  are  joking,"  said  Fergus.  "  I  met  you 
in  London  some  time  before  the  historic  farewell,  and 
you  were  pathetically  full  of  Ireland.  You  were  a  bad 
landlord  who  had  found  grace,  a  worldling  in  whom  the 
primitive  Celt  had  revived  like  a  conscience,  an  Anglicized 
Parisian  who  had  stepped  on  a  fairy  patch  steeped  in 
druid  dew,  and  many  other  things.  You  shuddered  when 
people  spoke  of  the  decadent  passions  you  once  inter 
preted;  you  crooned  Connacht  love-songs  till  you  melted 
to  tears." 

"  Art,  not  Nature/'  declared  Geoffrey.  "  I  was  deeply 
interested  in  Ireland  for  a  month  or  more ;  but  an  Ireland 
of  my  own  artistic  consciousness.  Ireland  for  the  time 
being  was  the  Novel  on,  or  to  which,  I  was  engaged,  and 
I  treated  her  like  a  fiancee.  If  I  advertised  the  little  love 
affair,  and  was  interviewed  about  it,  why,  what  harm  was 
done  ?  Incidentally  it  advertised  the  real  Ireland  —  with 
which  no  sane  man  or  artist  could  fall  in  love  —  so  even 


THE)   GREAT    NOVELIST    SAYS   GOOD-BYE  21 

the  real  Ireland  gained  something.  Now  the  flame  is 
spent,  and  —  I  am  leaving  the  Isle  of  Weariness." 

"  What !  "  exclaimed  Fergus.  "  Leaving  Ireland  when 
a  new  life  is  stirring  in  her  veins,  and  she  wants  all  her 
thinkers  and  workers " 

"  Do  you  seriously  expect  me  to  turn  intellectual  mono 
gamist  in  luscious  and  critical  middle  age?"  asked  Geof 
frey.  "  I  have  loved  and  lived  with  Ireland  for  a  much 
longer  season  than  wisdom  dictated,  and  the  alliance  is 
a  strain  on  me.  I  must  seek  a  new  flame  or  I  perish. 
It  is  the  price  of  intellectual  virility." 

"  Can  it  be  ?  Can  it  be  ?  "  asked  Fergus.  "  Must  the 
Parisian  plough  stop  suddenly  in  the  first  furrow  of  the 
Untilled  Field  of  Banba " 

"  Pooh  !  Pooh  !  "  said  Geoffrey.  "  Why,  your  impos 
sible  Gaelic  League  turned  green  over  my  scheme  to  bring 
a  galvanic  battery  to  bear  on  your  comatose  language  by 
translating  Zola  into  it.  When  I  tried,  to  give  Carton  a 
few  easy  lessons  in  the  ways  of  woman,  he  said  I  spoiled 
his  play  and  his  moral  reputation,  and  he  had  to  go  and 
endow  a  church  choir  in  consequence.  Impossible  parish, 
Ireland." 

"  And  when  is  the  tearful  leave-taking  to  be  ?  "  asked 
Fergus.  "  Your  parting  epigrams,  I  suppose,  are  all 
ready." 

"  There  are  to  be  no  tears,"  replied  Geoffrey.  "  I  and 
Ireland  recognize  that  we  part  for  each  other's  good. 
She  clearly  sees  that  she  has  not  passion  enough  to  hold  an 
artist,  and  an  alliance  in  such  circumstances  would  be  dull 
and  immoral.  I  leave  on  the  North  Wall  boat  at  two." 

"  That  seems  a  commonplace  exit,"  said  Fergus.     "  To 


22  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

leave  in  the  early  morning  by  the  mail-boat  from  Dun- 
loaghaire  —  nick-named  Kingstown  —  would  seem  more 
worthy  of  an  artist.  There  is  a  radiant  view  of  the  reced 
ing  hills  from  the  deck." 

"  It  would  have  meant  early  rising,"  said  Geoffrey, 
"  and  besides  I  don't  want  to  see  Ireland's  beauty  at  the 
parting  time.  I  want  to  see  her  ugliness  and  futility  in 
order  to  harden  my  heart  and  confirm  my  resolution. 
And  the  crude  confounded  ugliness  of  the  North  Wall 
is  just  the  thing  to  do  that." 

"  Yet  to  me,"  said  Fergus,  "  the  North  Wall  has  a 
tender  and  homely  beauty.  Like  certain  forms  of  Dutch 
art  it "  Geoffrey  threw  out  his  hands. 

"  Don't,"  he  cried  in  an  imploring  tone,  "  don't  speak 
about  art  to  me  until  we  meet  some  day  in  some  place 
far  away  from  Ireland.  Then  I'll  be  in  the  mood  to 
listen.  Talking  of  art  in  Dublin  is  as  vain  as  talking  of 
spring  water  in  Purgatory.  But  I  want,  before  I  go,  to 
speak  to  you  seriously  about  your  future." 

"  I'm  afraid  that  from  your  point  of  view  mine  is  a 
hopeless  case,"  said  Fergus  with  a  smile. 

"  Never,  so  long  as  you  have  the  price  of  a  ticket  to 
Paris  or  London,  or  any  other  place  where  ideas  are 
either  prized  or  despised.  You  can  preserve  your  intel 
lectual  self  in  such  a  place,  and  you  can  live.  Whether 
the  people  appreciate  or  dislike  ideas  does  not  matter  in 
the  long  run  to  the  artist  —  they'll  give  him  a  hearing 
for  love's  sake  or  hate's  sake.  In  a  place  like  Ireland, 
where  ideas  are  simply  not  understood,  and  where  the 
clergy  won't  allow  them  to  be  understood,  you  can  do 
nothing,  except  stagnate  or  take  to  drink." 


THE   GREAT    NOVELIST   SAYS   GOOD-BYE  23 

"  You  walk  in  darkness,"  said  Fergus,  "  or  rather  you 
follow  shadows  back  to  London,  and  you  leave  a  world 
of  human  drama  and  endless  enchantment  here  within 
the  four  seas  of  Eire.  I  have  my  own  dark  moments, 
but  I  know  the  enchantment  is  here  withal." 

"  Enough,"  said  Geoffrey  dolefully.  "  A  young  man 
who  talks  that  way  has  got  the  new  Irish  fever  badly. 
It  must  be  left  to  work  itself  out.  It  will  take  about  a 
year  to  do  that.  He  will  live  partly  on  air  and  see  visions 
for  the  twelve  months.  If  he  does  not  proclaim  the  visions 
abroad,  and  if  he  does  not  try  to  do  anything  particular 
there  will  be  no  dangerous  consequences.  He  will  just 
wake  up  in  due  course,  and  see  Ireland  as  she  really  is  — 
a  certain  number  of  silly  sheepfolds  attached  to  a  certain 
number  of  priests'  houses.  If  he  does  anything  particular 
he  will  be  excommunicated  by  the  priests  and  butted  by 
the  sheep.  This  will  probably  be  your  own  fate." 

"  It  is  a  mistake  to  start  work  in  Ireland  with  theories 
about  the  clergy,  or  any  other  class,"  Fergus  said.  "  It 
deprives  life  at  the  start  of  human  interest  and  surprise. 
You  can't  fit  women,  or  even  novelists,,  into  a  theory. 
Why  then  the  clergy  ?  " 

"  I  '11  leave  the  shock  of  discovery  to  yourself,"  an 
swered  Geoffrey.  "  We'll  see  what  your  wild  hope  in 
Maynooth  will  come  to.  You  are  really  rather  a  curious 
case,  and  I  'd  almost  like  to  stay  and  study  your  fortune, 
or  rather  misfortune.  But  I  must  get  away  to  some  place 
where  ideas  are  either  blessed  or  cursed.  The  intellect 
ual  inanition  and  vacuity  of  Dublin  are  unbearable.  'Tis 
cruel  to  leave  you  at  your  age  in  this  intellectual  No 
Man's  Land,  but  some  day  soon  I  '11  be  welcoming  you 


24  TIIK   PLOUGH    AND   THtf    CROSS 

back  to  civilization.  Goodbye  "  —  he  looked  at  his  watch 
—  "I  may  be  obliged  to  walk  to  the  boat.  I  'm  not  sure 
that  a  Dublin  jarvey  could  drive  there  in  the  time." 

Geoffrey  shook  Fergus's  hand  sadly.  "  It's  like  leaving 
you  in  a  condemned  cell/'  he  said,  as  he  turned  towards 
the  door. 

"  Can't  I  really  prevail  on  you  to  stay?  "  asked  Fergus 
smilingly.  "  There  are  plenty  of  sensations  in  Ireland. 
The  Oireachtas  *  will  be  delightful.  And  Miss  Lefanti 
will  soon  be  here  on  her  theosophical  mission.  Couldn't 
you  help  her  in  her  anti-Hell-Fire  campaign  ?  '  Mortimer 
versus  Hell '  might  prove  as  historic  as  'Athanasius 
contra  inundum! '' 

"  The  Oireachtas  !  Ugh !  I  saw  it  last  year.  It  would 
have  been  delightful  if  I  were  blind.  Then  I  'd  have  rev 
eled  in  the  music  and  the  accents,  and  I  would  not  have 
seen  what  I  saw.  Why,  not  one  of  the  fiddlers  or  pipers 
in  the  competitions  had  pared  his  finger  nails !  How  can 
you  expect  one  to  tolerate  art  in  people  with  black,  un 
couth  finger-nails?  I  had  nightmares  for  a  week  after 
wards,  and  in  the  mornings  I  was  too  nervous  to  shave 
myself ;  my  hand  trembled  so  much  that  I  was  afraid  of 
cutting  my  throat.  Oh,  yes,  Miss  Lefanu !  Pious  and 
charming  revolutionary!  You'll  doubtless  get  very  in 
terested.  But  you'll  have  to  marry  the  lady.  They're 
very  particular  in  Dublin:  alliances  must  be  duly  noted 
in  the  parish  books.  And  then  —  a  newspaper,  a  farm, 
and  a  madwoman  on  your  hands.  Poor  devil!  Well, 
time's  up.  I  must  walk  to  the  North  Wall." 

*  The  annual  literary  and  musical  festival  of  the  Gaelic  League. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    WlSTtfUIv    PAGAN    AND    THE    HEU,    OF    SUCCESS 


Geoffrey  Mortimer  had  depart 
ed  for  the  North  Wall,  en  route 
for  London,  Fergus  O'Hagan  did 
what  was  probably  never  done  be 
fore  in  any  other  editorial  cell.  He 
took  down  his  fiddle  and  began  to 
play  what  he  remembered  of  the 
quaint,  airy  and  tender  country 
tunes  beloved  in  his  youth  in  the 
South. 

Latterly  the  fiddle  and  the  old  melodies  seemed  to  have 
become  not  simply  a  diversion,  but  a  necessity  in  life. 
The  reasons  were  various.  One  was  that  the  kindly 
folk-music  lightened  his  recurring  depression  and  ban 
ished  unanswered  questioning.  Others  were  abstruse 
and  complicated,  but  clear  enough  to  his  own  mind.  In 
Ireland  —  or  at  any  rate  the  Ireland  that  specially  inter 
ested  him  —  young  men  were  passing  through  far  more 
significant  phases  than  most  observers  realized  ;  which 
was  no  wonder,  as  the  phases  were  mental  and  spiritual. 
It  was  a  time  of  unrest,  and  questioning,  and  the  dawn  of 
new  vision. 


26  THE    PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

All  this  affected  Fergus  variously.  In  a  day  when 
young  men  faced  all  sorts  of  problems  and  issues,  Fainne 
an  Lac,  from  its  position,  was  necessarily  made  the 
medium  of  critiques  and  confidences  from  all  quarters. 
"  Innocent  young  men,  who  imagine  they  can  think  in 
Ireland,  are  collecting  the  materials  out  of  which  the  bish 
ops  will  make  an  interesting  bonfire,  having  first  knocked 
the  collectors  on  the  head,"  said  Geoffrey  Mortimer 
sardonically.  Whatever  ecclesiastics  may  have  thought, 
Fergus  himself  was  in  one  respect  perturbed.  The 
thought  was  good,  and  in  the  Irish  articles  especially  it 
had  a  fascinating  freshness ;  but  he  feared  that  his  friends 
were  in  danger  of  becoming  positively  problem-vexed 
and  losing  the  flavor  of  humanity.  His  contributors 
were  in  turn  politicians,  social  scientists,  theologians, 
industrial  revivalists,  socialists,  and  other  things ;  but  in 
their  energy  and  ardor  they  were  in  danger  of  missing 
the  magic  of  Life.  They  seemed  to  be  drifting  away 
from  the  soil  and  the  hearth,  from  the  glamor  of  the 
wild  earth,  and  the  soul  of  existence ;  from  the  spirit 
he  called  Ireland.  His  great  trouble  in  this  transition 
time  was  to  preserve  in  the  paper  —  and  in  himself  — 
a  sense  of  country  life  and  character,  a  breath  from  the 
old  civilization  amidst  which  his  childhood  had  been 
spent.  With  the  theorists  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
fearsome  slums  of  Dublin  on  the  other,  it  was  difficult. 
But  the  fiddle  and  the  folk-music  forever  brought  back 
the  old  firesides  and  the  old  savor  of  life  to  him  —  for 
a  spell. 

He  had  explained  this  philosophy  to  Geoffrey  Mortimer. 
The  distinguished  novelist  made  ironic  sport  of  it.  "  Ye 


THE;    WISTFUL    PAGAN    AND    SUCCESS  2/ 

are  all  the  same,"  he  said.  "  The  keen  edge  of  thought 
is  too  much  for  the  soft,  silken  Irish  temperament.  The 
bishops  say,  '  The  Lord  between  us  and  all  manifestations 
of  the  Evil  One ! '  and  prepare  a  pastoral  against  the  subtle 
foe.  The  editor  of  Fainne  an  Lae  is  Irish,  so  he  cries 
'Diet  idir  sinn  agus  an  t-olc!'  and  takes  fearful  refuge 
in  his  fiddle.  Nothing  so  naive  has  happened  since  the 
delightful  medieval  days  when  they  used  to  ring  church 
bells  on  the  coming  of  storms  in  order  to  clear  the  air, 
as  they  thought,  of  thunder." 

Now,  as  Fergus  played  the  old  country  tunes,  the 
winter  firesides  of  childhood  and  boyhood  rose  again  and 
glowed  and  laughed  for  him.  A  sense  of  exquisite  peace 
and  of  the  unsounded  sweetness  of  life  stole  over  him. 
Those  melodies  to  him  were  the  most  authentic  and  soul 
ful  survival  from  the  old  civilization,  full  of  the  deep 
heart  and  the  exquisite  yearnings  of  the  race.  It  would 
be  glorious,  he  thought,  to  give  up  the  whole  burning 
battle  of  moods  and  words  and  problems  —  land  schemes, 
newspapers,  slum-lands,  and  all  —  and  wander  for  years 
as  a  fiddler  among  the  villages  and  nooks  of  the  Gaed- 
healtacht,  beyond  the  Shannon  and  the  Galtees.  The 
winters  would  be  mellow  with  cheer  and  the  summers 
bright  with  magic.  One  would  see  visions  below  the  stars, 
and  thrill  with  inspiration  at  sunrise.  One  would  listen 
to  wonder-worlds  of  folk-lore  and  haunting  songs,  and 
haply  hear  in  felicitous  moments  the  fairy-music  from  the 
raths.  One  would  know,  day  in  day  out,  the  more  touch 
ing  magic  of  the  croidhe  na  fcilc*  of  the  unspoiled  people. 
As  the  years  deepened  one  might  create  a  few  songs  from 

*  Literally,  "Heart  of  Hospitality." 


2  THE  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

the  heart,  and  a  few  tunes  as  wondrous  as  those  melodies 
of  old:  and  what  sweeter  outcome  of  a  life  could  there 
be,  what  more  loving  legacy  to  the  hearts  and  spirits  of 
the  generations?  .  .  . 

A  boy  knocked  loudly  at  the  door,  and  conveyed  the 
surprising  news  that  Mr.  Terence  O'Connellan  would  like 
to  see  him.  The  name  of  the  eminent  editor  brought  him 
down  to  the  material  world.  .  .  . 

Fergus  was  astonished  at  the  fact  of  Terence's  presence 
in  Dublin,  for  that  noted  man,  though  he  wrote  with 
solemn  pathos  of  his  native  land  for  British  matrons  and 
maids,  and  waxed  wistfully  eloquent  on  its  claims  before 
British  political  audiences,  loved  it  best  at  a  distance. 
He  metaphorically  kissed  hands  to  Eire  from  his  mansion 
or  his  luxurious  editorial  rooms  in  London,  and  then 
turned  to  descant  in  sobbing  prose  on  the  pathos  of 
destiny  —  he  was  an  expert  on  the  gloomy  side  of  destiny 
—  as  revealed  in  the  lives  and  loves  of  the  neurotic 
heroines  of  modern  fiction,  or  the  courtlier  scandals  that 
hung  round  the  queens  or  other  consorts  of  the  royal 
rakes  of  history.  To  other  journalists  or  reviewers, 
scandals  were  simply  scandals;  he  prided  himself  on 
retrospectively  raising  their  tone,  and  revealing  their  sad, 
if  soiled,  humanity. 

As  Terence  was  "  shown  "  upstairs  many  pictures  came 
before  the  mind  of  Fergus  —  pictures  of  days  when  he 
worked  in  Fleet  Street  under  Terence,  and  when  Terence 
was  still  regarded  by  the  outside  world  as  a  great  journal 
istic  leader  of  democracy.  He  smiled  a  little  sadly  over 
the  dreams  and  the  disillusions  of  those  days,  but  it 
was  the  dreams  that  predominated. 


THE)    WISTFUL,    PAGAN    AND    SUCCESS  29 

It  was  with  some  difficulty  that  Terence  entered  the 
narrow  door  of  the  editorial  room.  He  was  more  portly 
and  material-looking  than  ever,  but  the  old  melancholy 
on  his  massive  features,  and  in  his  keen  yet  tired  eyes, 
had  gravely  deepened.  If  physiognomy  were  any  criterion 
his  features  told  of  great,  satisfied  appetites,  and  of 
dissatisfaction  and  despair  that  succeeded  repletion.  It 
was  a  picture  to  make  the  beholder  grave. 

Terence  held  out  his  hand;  his  face  lightened  with 
a  sort  of  wintry  gleam,  and  he  spoke  with  tired  cheerful 
ness.  When,  at  Fergus's  cheery  request,  he  sat  down  on 
the  second  small  chair  that  the  "  sanctum "  contained 
there  seemed  to  be  no  room  for  anything  else  in  the 
apartment. 

"  Your  office  boy  told  me  at  first,"  he  said,  "  that  you 
were  playing  the  fiddle  and  must  not  be  disturbed.  I  'm 
glad  to  see  that  the  atmosphere  of  this  deludherin'  little 
island  "  — •  Terence's  accent  came  on  one  with  a  sense  of 
shock,  it  seemed  so  unspoiled  in  a  spoiled  nature  —  "  is 
favorable  to  the  elfin  harmony  of  your  character.  When 
you  were  on  my  staff  in  London  you  fiddle-played,  if  I 
may  so  speak,  with  a  pen,  and  you  caused  my  British 
friends  some  sore  bewilderment.  I  suppose,  you  lucky 
young  man,  you  are  happy  at  last  ?  " 

"  To  tell  the  plain  truth,"  said  Fergus,  "  I  am  no  more 
happy  than  I  was  in  London.  There  seems  always  some 
wonderful  want  in  life.  Once  in  a  while,  as  when  I  write 
a  poem,  or  plough  in  the  Boyne  Valley,  or  play  an  old 
folk-tune  on  the  fiddle,  something  glorious  seems  to  well 
up  in  life  or  in  myself,  but  the  irony  is  that  even  in  those 
golden  moments  the  want  —  whatever  it  is  —  seems  more 


3O  THE;  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

golden  still.  If  I  only  knew  what  I  really  want  the  pro 
blem  would  at  least  be  simplified ;  but  I  don't." 

"  A-a-a-ah !  "  said  Terence,  in  what  seemed  a  weird 
sepulchral  groan ;  "  you  have  come  into  the  toils  of  the 
irony  of  ironies.  The  modern  Devil  is  the  fact  that  we 
don't  know  what  we  want,  and  no  philosophy  can  tell  us. 
In  my  young  and  starving  days  in  London,  when  I  stood 
cold  and  hungry  outside  a  certain  shop  in  the  Strand,  I 
thought  the  supreme  want  of  life  was  a  frizzling  and 
hissing  sausage.  The  day  came  when  I  could  buy  up  all 
the  sausages  of  London,  and  then  I  loathed  sausages,  and 
writhed  in  the  hell  of  indigestion;  I  groaned  for  other 
things,  and  they  came  my  way,  and  then  I  suffered  the 
pangs  of  moral  and  intellectual  indigestion.  What  a  cruel 
hell  is  the  success  of  life !  " 

"  Well,  I  'm  glad  to  see,"  said  Fergus,  "  that  you  have 
made  a  bold  dash  out  of  hell  at  last.  I  assume  you  have 
renounced  London  for  ever,  and  have  returned  to  work 
to  the  end  in  your  native  land.  One  by  one  the  Gaels 
seem  to  be  coming  back,  whatever  Geoffrey  Mortimer  may 
say.  Will  you  let  Fainne  an  Lae  have  the  honor  of 
making  the  first  announcement  of  the  ending  of  your 
exile?  Shall  I  stop  the  machine,  and  run  in  a  double- 
leaded  '  Stop  Press  '  note  ?  " 

"Easy,  now,"  said  Terence,  in  a  tone  of  resigned 
melancholy.  "  At  my  time  of  life  men  don't  willingly 
change  their  prisons.  And  from  London  to  Ireland  is  sim 
ply  a  change  of  prisons.  Of  the  prisoners  the  Londoners 
are  the  more  natural  and  frankly  Pagan  of  the  two ;  the 
Irish  the  more  foolish  and  cowardly.  In  London  we  are 
allowed  to  complain  as  much  as  we  please  —  useless  as  it 


THE:    WISTFUL,    PAGAN    AND    SUCCESS  3! 

is  —  of  the  hardships  of  our  prison.  We  call  that  free 
dom  of  thought.  In  Ireland  you  dare  not  doubt  or 
speculate,  or  call  life  a  prison  at  all.  You  must  look  on 
it  as  a  sure  prelude  to  eternal  bliss.  That  is  called  piety, 
resignation  to  the  Will  of  Providence,  and  devotion  to  the 
bishops  and  clergy  —  the  most  revered  and  reverend 
warders  of  your  prison-house.  We  are  all  bondsmen,  with 
marks  of  the  beast,,  and  the  sport  of  ironic  fate  or  chance. 
The  Londoner  knows  it,  and  tries  to  make  the  best  of 
this  poor,  ironic  prison  of  a  world.  The  Irishman  is 
drugged  and  dragooned  into  a  condition  of  ignorance  and 
confusion,  sometimes  half-blissful,  and  does  nothing  par 
ticular  —  at  any  rate  until  he  gets  away  from  his  own 
bogs  and  mists ;  and  then  he  becomes  English  or  Ameri 
can." 

^  And  what  are  you  doing  to  keep  him  at  home,  and  to 
keep  him  Irish  ?  "  asked  Fergus.  "  You  are  a  leading 
member  of  a  party  whose  whole  trend  is  to  keep  the  Irish 
political,  social,  economic  and  intellectual  center  of  grav 
ity  in  London,  instead  of  in  Ireland,  where  obviously  it 
ought  to  be." 

"  Oh,  don't  give  me  a  New  Ireland  lecture,"  said 
Terence  despondently.  "  What  does  it  matter  where 
Ireland's  center  of  gravity  is,  or  England's,  or  France's, 
or  any  other  nation's?  All  talk  about  nationality  is  dry 
and  vain  and  barren.  What  essential  difference  is  there 
between  an  Irishman  and  an  American,  or  an  Englishman, 
or  a  Frenchman?  Racial  pride  is  only  another  illusion 
the  ironic  fates  have  given  poor  distracted  man  to  worry 
his  brain  about.  The  common  denominator  of  man  is  the 
passion  for  the  eternal  feminine.  Everything  else  is  inci- 


32  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE;  CROSS 

dental.  That  reminds  me  that  there  is  nothing  about  the 
sexes  in  your  paper;  and  so,  though  it  is  said  to  be 
brilliant,  it  is  infernally  wearisome  to  me.  Surely,  as  an 
experienced  journalist,  you  must  know  that  it  is  not 
thought  or  intellect  that  dominates  the  world,  but  love 
and  passion." 

"  It  is  not  so  in  Young  Ireland,  anyhow,"  said  Fergus 
with  a  smile.  "  Our  young  men,  to  be  sure,  are  human 
and  chivalrous  and  reverent  towards  woman-kind;  but 
the  great  desire  of  their  hearts  in  these  days  is  to  prepare 
the  way  for  a  human  and  self-reliant  and  creative  nation. 
Woman  is  to  them  the  comrade-thinker  and  the  comrade- 
builder,  not  a  toy  or  a  slave,  or  even  a  golden  creature 
of  romance.  We  decline  to  see  her  as  light-headed 
novelists  see  her " 

"  Then  your  damned  Young  Ireland  is  dehumanized, 
and  is  deceiving  itself/'  said  Terence,  with  a  touch  of 
passion  in  his  hoarse,  sepulchral  voice.  "  No  wonder  this 
infernal  Irish-Ireland  Party,  or  whatever  ye  call  it,  is  so 
remote  from  the  realities  of  life.  It  is  led  and  directed 
by  sexless  people,  while  we,  the  Parliamentarians  that  ye 
want  to  supersede,  are  full  of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and 
the  Devil,  and  so  understand  life  and  men.  If  ye  were 
human  ye  might  have  to  be  reckoned  with,  but  as  it  is 
ye  '11  achieve  no  more  in  Ireland  than  a  National  Council 
composed  of  all  the  will-o'-the-wisps  and  Jack-o'-the- 
lanterns  in  the  country." 

Fergus  laughed. 

"  I  'm  afraid/'  he  said,  "  that  you  have  been  spoiled  by 
the  reading  and  reviewing  of  all  the  sex-novels  of  the 
last  two  decades.  You  have  come  to  forget  true  woman- 


THD    WISTFUL    PAGAN    AND    SUCCESS  33 

hood  in  your  profession  of  specialist  in  neurotic  lunacy. 
Thank  goodness  there  's  a  great  deal  of  the  Eden  sense 
still  left  in  Ireland,  and  I  trust  in  every  other  land  under 
the  sun." 

"  Eden !  "  groaned  Terence.  "  Why,  the  meaning  of 
the  Eden  story  is  that  Adam  and  Eve  gave  way  to  passion, 
and  the  habit  remained  with  the  race.  I  see  you  are  as 
hopeless  as  ever.  I  often  wondered  in  your  London  years 
why,  with  all  your  talent,  we  could  not  bring  you  down  to 
realities,  and  make  you  human  and  ambitious ;  you  were 
always  flying  off  towards  the  moon  and  stars  —  which  are 
hopelessly  uninteresting  to  humanity,  whatever  inscrut 
able  purpose  they  serve.  There  is  not  the  saving,  hard 
ening  leaven  of  vice  in  your  character,  and  so  you  '11 
come  to  nothing,  at  any  rate  in  drugged  and  sheepish 
Ireland.  Still,  if  you  'd  come  back  to  London  we  might 
spoil  and  so  save  you.  You  are  young  yet,  and  so  there 
is  time  to  corrupt  you." 

"  'Tis  something,"  replied  Fergus,  "  to  know  that  one 
of  the  most  famous  of  journalists  has  not  entirely  given 
me  up.  But  at  the  moment  I  am  more  interested  in 
Ireland  than  in  myself,  and  I  'd  rather  listen  to  you  on 
the  solution  of  the  national  problem." 

"  It 's  absolutely  insoluble,"  declared  Terence,  "so  long 
as  the  clergy  are  so  powerful,  and  the  people  so  docile 
and  dehumanized.  The  wine  of  life  has  been  kept  from 
the  people  so  long  that  they  don't  appear  to  want  to  taste 
it  now.  They  are  sexless,  austere,  benumbed,  unvirile, 
and  the  clergy  can  do  anything  they  like  with  them.  If 
the  men  could  recover  the  passions  and  dreams  of  men 
and  the  women  the  desires  and  dreams  of  women,  they 


34  TH£  PivOUGH  AND  THE;  CROSS 

would  live  their  lives  to  the  full,  without  fear  of  damna 
tion  after  death,  and  the  clergy  would  soon  have  to 
abandon  their  unnatural  and  inhuman  dictatorship.  What 
is  the  good  of  trying  to  solve  a  mere  political  problem  — 
I  say  this  plainly  to  leaders  of  the  Party  in  private; 
but  the  Party  is  not  serious  —  when  the  real  trouble  is 
the  shirking  of  life?  Irish  misgovernment,  indeed!  It 
would  have  been  swept  away  long  ago  if  there  were  not 
below  and  beyond  it  all  the  appalling  curse  and  blight  of 
Irish  dehumanization  and  moral  cowardice." 

"  You  are  certainly  obsessed  in  regard  to  sex  questions ; 
but  there  may  be  a  sort  of  truth  in  what  you  say.  I  '11 
think  it  over." 

"  Don't,"  groaned  Terence.  "  Don't  waste  your  brain 
over  the  inhuman  muddle.  Already  you  look  care-worn. 
Don't  make  the  dangerous  and  costly  mistake  of  putting 
your  real  self  into  your  work.  Cultivate  a  special  person 
ality  for  journalistic  and  public  use.  Look  at  me  —  can 
I  not  point  with  just  pride  to  my  public  personality  as  a 
triumph  of  art  and  an  inspiration  to  humanity?  I  tell 
my  friend  Tree  that  he  has  never  achieved  such  an 
impersonation  on  his  stage.  In  religion  and  in  education, 
behold  what  I  am  in  the  world's  eyes  —  a  '  great  Catholic 
champion,'  a  '  tower  of  strength  against  the  secularization 
of  the  schools/  a  '  defender  of  the  Church,'  praised  by 
your  own  bishops ;  while  you,  with  all  your  simple 
Christianity,  are  probably  a  source  of  uneasiness  to  them." 

"  I  'd  rather  play  the  fiddle  for  a  living  than  let  my  own 
personality  play  a  part,"  declared  Fergus. 

"  You  can  be  neither  heroic  nor  successful  in  this 
pitiful  island/'  said  Terence.  "  Even  to  seriously  help 


THE)    WISTFUL    PAGAN    AND    SUCCESS  35 

Ireland  you  must  work  from  a  distance;  from  the  days 
of  the  old  story-tellers,  Ireland  has  always  appreciated 
things  and  heroes  at  a  distance.  No  other  land  in  the 
world  is  such  a  worshiper  of  distance.  Come  back  to 
London  on  my  staff  —  at  that  distance  Ireland  will  ap 
preciate  you  —  and  I  '11  increase  your  old  salary  by  one- 
half." 

"  That  would  be  three  times  as  much  as  I  can  ever 
expect  in  Ireland/'  said  Fergus,  with  a  smile.  "  But  to 
take  more  money  than  one  wants,  or  deserves,  is  immoral. 
The  true  payment  is  joy  in  work,  and  help  afforded  to 
others.  And  then  Ireland  wants  me,  or  rather  I  want 
Ireland.  I  '11  stay." 

Terence  rose  slowly. 

"  Think  it  over,"  he  said.  "  I  '11  give  you  some  time  to 
do  so ;  I  '11  be  back  in  Dublin  later  on.  I  'm  going  down 
to  that  desolate  town  of  the  West  where  I  was  born. 
I  'm  going  home  to  bury  my  mother." 

He  spoke  the  last  words  in  a  low  and  plaintive  tone, 
and  his  eyes  were  tearful  as  he  shook  Fergus's  hand. 
Fergus  was  so  struck  by  the  change  and  the  picture  that 
he  could  only  murmur  his  sympathy.  The  shadow  deep 
ened  on  Terence's  face,  and  he  went  out  without  speak 
ing  again. 

"  No  man  is  so  hardened  as  he  thinks,"  said  Fergus  to 
himself,  when  Terence  had  gone  down.  "  Nature  knows 
when  and  where  to  find  us  all  out." 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  NEW  ADAM  OUTSIDE  MAYNOOTH 


HILE  Fergus  listened  in  his  office 
to  the  philosophy  of  Terence 
O'Connellan,  Miss  Maeve 
O'Hagan  was  engaged  in  the  little 
summer-house  in  the  garden  at 
Dalkey.  She  had  a  view  from 
where  she  sat  of  Killiney  Hill  and 
the  Bay,  and  she  took  passing  no 
tice  of  them  occasionally.  She 
appreciated  natural  beauty,  but 
did  not  allow  it  to  engross  her 

attention ;  her  attitude  to  seascape  and  mountain  was  one 
of  friendly  recognition  rather  than  enthusiasm ;  the  Alps 
or  the  Himalayas  would  not  nonplus  or  carry  her  away. 
Slim  and  petite  as  she  was,  she  would  give  the  idea  of 
being  somehow  above  them.  She  worked  at  crochet  with 
a  reverent  solemnity,  bending  over  from  time  to  time 
to  grasp  the  burden  of  a  passage  of  the  Bossuet  (I/Ex 
position  de  la  doctrine  catholique),  which  lay  open  on  the 
little  table  before  her.  One  of  her  projects  was  to  trans 
late  what  she  specially  favored  of  Bossuet,  Fenelon,  and 
Lacordaire  into  Irish.  The  translation  proceeded  at  the 


THE   NEW   ADAM   OUTSIDE    MAYNOOTH  39 

rate  of  some  three  pages  a  year.  Very  intimate  friends 
presumed  occasionally,  but  in  a  hesitating  way,  to  com 
ment  —  the  most  daring  did  not  jest  —  on  her  dilatoriness. 
Her  reply  was  caustic,  or  gracious,  or  lightsome,  accord 
ing  to  her  mood ;  but  she  always  conveyed  the  sense  that 
the  project  was  a  thing  of  profound  moment  in  her  life, 
and  that  she  would  lose  her  bearings  in  the  universe  with 
out  it.  The  perfected  achievement  might  be  far  off,  but 
she  moved  towards  it  by  stages  whose  very  slowness  and 
deliberation  bespoke  its  dignity  and  its  nobility.  For  one 
whose  mind  was  so  alert,  and  whose  tongue  was  so  keen, 
there  was  infinite  repose  about  her  personality.  There 
was  a  flavor  of  epic  in  her  procrastination.  It  seemed  the 
brooding  and  the  spiritual  reserve  of  a  great  spirit  far 
above  the  impetuosity  and  the  urgent  futilities  of  imper 
fect  humanity. 

She  took  off  her  glasses  and  laid  them  tenderly  on  the 
Bossuet.  With  the  glasses,  for  all  her  grace  and  come 
liness,  she  looked  a  little  severe,  though  the  severity  was 
tempered  by  piquancy ;  she  seemed  one  who  looked  quite 
through  the  deeds  of  men.  Without  the  glasses  her  eyes 
looked  very  deep,  soft,  and  singularly  roguish.  Fergus 
used  to  say  that  this,  not  the  Bossuet,  was  her  unique 
translation. 

She  heard  steps  on  the  path  to  the  summer-house, 
and  she  put  on  her  glasses  again  with  a  haste  which  was 
still  graceful.  At  the  sight  of  the  dark,  handsome  young 
man  who  paused  and  smiled  at  the  entrance,  her  face 
grew  chill,  and  a  cold  gleam  came  into  her  eyes.  Arthur 
O'Mara,  however,  only  smiled  more  brightly,  and  held 
out  his  hand.  She  did  not  take  it,  and  he  patted  her  on 


4o  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

the  head  gently.  She  arose  and  faced  him  freezingly. 
He  quietly  sat  down  in  front  of  her. 

"  I  suppose  you  think  very  dreadful  things  about  me," 
he  said.  "  I  might  agree  with  you,  if  the  day  were  wild 
and  stormy.  The  night  before  I  left  Maynooth  there  was 
a  storm,  and  some  awful  accusing  spirits  rose  within  me. 
I  wonder  were  they  the  traces  of  bygone  selves  —  I  have 
been  haunted  lately  by  the  reincarnation  theory.  But 
today,  in  the  glorious  sunlight  I  feel  a  joyous  —  Pagan 
I  suppose  you  'd  call  it  ?  " 

"  No,"  snapped  Maeve  very  coldly  and  grimly.  "A 
Pagan  cannot  help  being  what  he  is.  He  is  outside  the 
fold,  and  grace  has  not  been  given  him.  He  does  not  sin 
against  the  light." 

"  What  a  fiery  little  preacher  we  are  becoming !  I 
have  often  wondered  what  would  the  story  of  Christianity 
have  been  if  women  were  allowed  to  embark  on  theo 
logical  careers " 

'  They  would  easily  do  better  than  some  young  pretend 
ers  amongst " 

"  Ah !  Now  you  are  spoiling  an  interesting  general 
issue  by  a  crudely  personal  distraction.  And  you  are 
getting  somewhat  heated.  Is  it  all  worthy  of  this  exquisite 
hour  of  existence?  You  ought  to  be  .a  sea  worshiper 
and  a  mountain  votary  here.  I  thought  as  I  came  in 
that  I  'd  ask  you  to  come  with  me  to  the  top  of  Killiney 
Hill.  Or  we  might  go  down  into  the  Vale  of  Shanga- 
•nagh." 

"I'm  glad  you've 'not  asked  me,"  said  Maeve  coldly. 

"  I  suppose  it  is  all  as  familiar  to  you  as  your  garden," 
said  Arthur  simply.  "  But  you  cannot  understand  the 


TH£   NKW    ADAM   OUTSIDE    MAYNOOTH  4! 

freshness  of  its  fascination  for  me.  I  spent  all  yester 
day  on  the  mountains.  I  went  into  the  loneliest  places 
and  let  myself  roll  down  the  slopes  in  the  sunlight  in  the 
abandon  of  sheer  ecstasy." 

"  I  thought  you  would  have  gone  home,"  said  Maeve, 
less  coldly  than  before,  surprised  and  impressed  by  the 
glow  which  came  in  his  face. 

"  I  could  not  go  back  to  the  old  folk  and  the  neighbors. 
I  know  their  ideas  about  anybody  who  leaves  Maynooth. 
They  would  not  understand  all  that  has  been  burning  and 
singing  within  me  —  I  don't  half  understand  it  myself. 
And  there  would  be  religious  discussions  —  I  mean  dis 
cussions  about  religion  —  and  these  are  inexpressibly  dis 
tasteful  to  me.  Besides  coming  out  free  and  unshackled, 
into  the  fresh,  unknown  world  with  what  I  am  to  do 
with  life  a  vast  uncertainty,  was  a  shock  half-joyful, 
half-stunning.  I  felt  instinctively  that  in  the  lovely 
loneliness  of  the  hills  I  could  unravel  things.  I  wanted 
birds,  and  trees,  and  green  slopes.  All  the  afternoon 
I  felt  almost  delirious  with  happiness.  I  want  to  go  again 
today,  but  if  you  come  I  '11  promise  to  be  calmer." 

"  Don't  strain  your  good  nature  too  much,"  Maeve 
answered  with  mock  gravity. 

She  was  puzzled,  and  in  spite  of  herself  interested. 
She  had  thought  a  good  deal  about  Arthur  O'Mara  in 
the  last  few  days,  and  he  was  contradicting  all  her  con 
clusions  as  to  what  he  ought  to  be.  She  had  pictured 
something  tragic  and  penitential,  a  being  with  a  cloud 
on  his  brow,  who  was  conscious  of  a  flaming  sword 
behind  him,  and  knew  there  was  a  troubled  fate  before 
him;  for  banishment  from  Maynooth  was  a  modern 


42  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

banishment  from  Eden.  He  ought  to  talk  of  fate  and 
the  Church  and  theology  with  the  distracted  air  of  a 
Hamlet.  Dwelling  on  the  songs  of  birds  and  rolling 
down  hill-slopes  in  the  sunlight  was  riotously  unconven 
tional  behavior  on  the  part  of  the  new  Adam. 

"  I  'd  like  to  have  the  grand  poise  of  your  philosophy 
of  life,"  said  Arthur,  looking  at  her  a  little  wistfully. 
"At  least,  in  my  present  mood  I  would.  You  are  a  medi 
eval  survival.  In  the  Middle  Ages  people  were  contented 
with  the  same  set  of  ideas  for  hundreds  of  years — though, 
of  course,  there  was  a  great  deal  of  speculation  in  places. 
To  me  the  awesomely  impressive  thing  about  Dante  and 
Thomas  Aquinas  is  the  epic  cast-ironism,  so  to  say,  of 
their  minds,  the  unbroken,  unclouded,  undoubting  serious 
ness  with  which  they  wrought  and  wrought  on  their 
monumental  works.  I  am  Darwin  when  I  read  Darwin, 
Spinoza  when  I  read  Spinoza,  Loisy  when  I  read  Loisy, 
somebody  else  when  I  listen  to  the  birds,  and  another 
individuality  when  at  night  I  survey  the  stars.  I  begin 
poems  that  I  cannot  finish,  and  plan  adventures  that  I 
cannot  begin,  the  zest  being  gone.  If  one  could  be  stereo 
typed,  as  Maynooth  with  its  mighty  system  wants  one 
tobe- 

"  You  must  not  be  disrespectful  to  Maynooth,"  said 
Maeve  severely. 

"  I  have  no  desire  to  be  so.  I  have  a  certain  affection 
for  it,  and  I  think  with  respectful  awe  of  its  tremendous 
scheme  of  milling  and  molding,  in  which  all  types  are 
fashioned  into  the  one  type,  all  minds  regulated  as  one 
mind,  castjironed  as  the  mind  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Year 


THE   NEW    ADAM   OUTSIDE    MAYNOOTH  43 

by  year  Maynooth  calls  in  her  conscripts,  and  trains  them 
up  to  her  Grand  Army  standard,  and  when  they  are 
trained  she  sends  them  forth  to  post  and  outpost  to  hold 
and  regulate  the  body  and  soul  of  an  untrained  and  sub 
missive  nation.  And  the  marvel  is  how  her  Grand  Army 
believes  that  it  can  do  the  work  of  Heaven  and  England 
at  the  same  time." 

Maeve's  eyes  gleamed  coldly,  and  her  lips  tightened. 
She  could  not  speak  for  indignation  for  a  few  moments. 

"  That  is  cheap  and  impious  rhetoric,"  she  said  when 
she  found  voice.  "  Maynooth  has  a  long  and  priceless 
tradition  of  truth,  and  a  glorious  measure  of  grace.  You 
all,  when  you  begin  to  go  the  wrong  way,  leave  the  mighty 
and  mystic  element  of  grace  out  of  your  calculations. 
Maynooth  is  something  immeasurably  greater  than  all 
the  individualities  that  apparently  compose  Maynooth. 
Maynooth  cannot  linger  to  humor  the  whims  and  idio 
syncrasies  of  overgrown  boys,  or  be  guided  by  their  im 
mature  notions  of  ecclesiastical  and  national  policy." 

"A  boy's  vision,  if  the  boy  is  natural  and  sincere, 
may  also  be  a  part  of  God's  vision,"  said  Arthur  humbly. 
"  Where  would  Christianity,  or  any  religion,  be  today 
if  boys  had  not  seen  and  followed  visions?  I  think  the 
visions  of  the  poor  herd,  Patrick,  have  counted  for  some 
thing  in  Ireland's  spiritual  evolution " 

"  Don't  use  that  tawdry  word  '  evolution.'  It 's  part 
of  the  stock-in-trade  of  every  charlatan  nowadays,"  said 
Maeve.  "  One  would  think  it  explained  all  mystery  and 
abolished  all  wonder." 

"  For  myself  I  am  only  just  in  the  beginning  of  won- 


44  TH£  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

der,"  said  Arthur,  an  eager  light  in  his  eyes.  "  I  almost 
cried  for  wonder  on  the  sunny  hillsides  yesterday.  What 
ever  the  meaning  of  life  may  be  —  and  I  've  now  no 
theory  at  all  —  it  was  ecstasy  among  the  grasses,  and  the 
breezes,  and  the  sunshine,  and  the  birds.  I  felt  the  joy 
of  having  an  open  mind  —  a  child  of  Nature  with  no 
label,  or  a  sailor  in  a  splendid,  uncharted  sea.  The  rest 
of  you  feel  you  are  booked  and  bound  for  the  ports  of 
Heaven,  Hell,  or  Purgatory.  I  just  revel  in  the  seascape, 
and  sing  in  my  little  barque." 

''  To  come  down  to  the  language  of  plain  and  simple 
people,  what  do  you  propose  to  do  with  yourself?  You 
have  made  some  plans  for  the  future,  I  assume  ?  " 

"  None,"  said  Arthur  promptly ;  "except  that  I  Ve 
thought  of  camping  out  for  a  couple  of  weeks  on  Howth. 
In  the  sunny  and  the  lonely  places  I  feel  serene  enough. 
In  towns  and  crowds  I  feel  broken  and  terrorized.  I 
don't  want  to  think  of  the  future ;  '  plans  '  as  you  call 
them  are  a  horror  to  me." 

"  But  you  can't  waste  your  life,"  said  Maeve  with 
severe  firmness.  "  You  have  duties  to  your  own  soul, 
your  own  people,  your  own  country " 

"At  present,"  said  Arthur  sadly,  "  I  recognize  no  such 
duties.  My  people,  almost  from  my  cradle,  marked  me 
out  for  the  priesthood,  as  an  honor  and  dignity  for  the 
family.  That  project  has  failed,  and  I  've  hurt  their 
pride,  and  won't  face  them.  My  country  I  don't  under 
stand,  my  soul  still  less.  It  is  sometimes  as  lightsome  and 
irresponsible  as  the  birds ;  in  clouded  days  and  stormy 
nights  it  is  dungeon-dark  and  woful.  Did  you  ever  study 


N£W   ADAM   OUTSIDE   MAYNOOTH  45 

a  Greek  tragedy,  did  you  ever  read  of  those  weird  sisters, 
the  Erinnyes?  If  you  did  you  '11  understand  my  feelings 
and  my  torments.  You  look  to  endless  bliss  beyond  the 
grave,  and  some  look  to  repeated  returns  to  earth  and 
repeated  life-experiments  in  new  bodies.  I  'd  like  the 
dreaded  awe  and  the  scarcely  less  dreaded  bliss  of  being 
to  end  once  for  all.  Nature's  unaccountable  experiments 
with  my  poor,  unfortunate  personality  terrorize  me." 

He  sat  down  at  Maeve's  feet  with  the  look  of  a  fright 
ened  child.  She  feared  for  a  moment  that  sudden  illness 
had  seized  him.  He  laughed  rather  wistfully,  and  then 
leaned  his  head  on  her  knees,  humming  as  he  did  so  a 
lugubrious  old  melody. 

For  one  so  dignified  as  Maeve  it  was  an  undignified 
position.  For  a  few  moments  she  came  as  near  to  being 
nonplussed  as  it  was  possible  for  her  to  be.  But  she 
did  not  stir  or  speak.  She  felt  instinctively  that  there 
had  been  more  storm  in  Arthur  O'Mara's  soul  than  any 
thing  he  had  uttered  had  described,  and  she  felt  that  the 
treatment  of  such  a  soul  in  these  days  of  crisis  might 
be  a  matter  of  eternal  significance.  She  hoped  he  would 
not  look  up  suddenly,  for  her  eyes  were  misty,  and  the 
display  of  emotion  was  against  her  principles. 

Arthur  O'Mara  did  not  look  up;  he  dropped  softly 
to  sleep.  And  then  Maeve  O'Hagan  realized  —  what 
had  not  struck  her  before  —  that  the  ecstasy  of  rolling 
down  hill-slopes  in  the  sunlight  had  its  pathetic  side. 


CHAPTER  VI 

O'  KENNEDY    AND   THE)    CLOUD- 


.ERGUS  O'HAGAN  said  to  himself,  after 
the  departure  of  Terence  O'Connellan, 
that  he  had  certainly  been  getting  the  bene 
fit  of  a  great  deal  of  philosophy  about 
Ireland  lately.  He  was  nearly  tired  of 
philosophy  about  Ireland,  and  wanted  to 
see  Irish  life  a-bloom  instead.  But  Life 
was  just  the  thing  from  which  the  majority  of 
his  countrymen  seemed  to  shrink.  Dublin  and 
other  centers  he  visited  did  not  seem  to  consist 
of  Individuals  in  an  ordered  and  acting  organ 
ism,  so  much  as  a  series  of  floating  Frames  of  Mind, 
mostly  pessimistic  and  .quite  unrelated  to  each  other.  For 
restless  and  unfruitful  frames  of  mind,  for  embodied 
doubts,  fears,  and  prejudices  masquerading  as  men  and 
women,  it  was  a  wonderful  and  an  eerie  land.  One  might 
be  pardoned  for  entertaining  the  assumption  that  the 
Creator  had  excluded  Eire  from  the  august  Design  which 
obtained  through  the  rest  of  the  universe.  He  had  not 
realized  the  want  in  other  years.  The  Ireland  of  his  youth 
had  been  a  natural  and  consistent  place,  one  essentially 
human.  With  the  exception  of  the  more  thoughtful  minds 


47 

in  the  Gaelic  League  the  Ireland  of  the  new  day  seemed 
to  have  lost  its  human  bearings  somehow.  It  had  no 
relation  to  its  own  historic  past,  and  no  definite  goal. 
Much  of  it  seemed  to  consist  of  fretful  spirits  on  the  brink 
of  disembodiment;  consequently  they  could  not  think 
of  settling  down  seriously  to  the  business  of  existence. 

Terence  O'Connellan  seemed  to  typify  that  uninformed 
and  disillusioned  Ireland,  grown  materialized  and  suffer 
ing  from  indigestion.  He  was  self -questioning  Racial 
Deterioration  striving  to  acclimatize  itself  in  another  civil 
ization,  and  periodically  playing  to  the  "  gallery."  He 
was  quite  different  from  Geoffrey  Mortimer,  ironist  and 
artist.  If  "  Irish  Ireland  "  could  afford  to  buy  him,  it 
might  exhibit  him  as  a  Horrible  Example. 

Fergus  took  down  the  old  riddle  again.  What  Terence 
had  said  about  passions  and  dreams  and  desires  turned 
his  thoughts  to  the  love-melodies  he  knew.  He  realized 
as  he  played  how  much  the  older  Gael  could  teach  Terence 
about  love  and  passion,  and  what  a  deal  of  it  he  would 
not  relish.  This  music,  his  priceless  gift  to  the  genera 
tions,  had  a  rapture  and  ruth,  an  impassioned  tenderness, 
a  thrill  of  tears  that  seemed  to  swoon  away  and  die  in 
dream,  to  rise  again  in  ecstasy  as  if  the  bard  and  lover 
had  slipped  awhile  the  bonds  of  time  and  clay.  What  had 
come  over  the  Gael  that  he  was  no  longer  inspired  to 
express  his  soul's  affection  in  such  exquisite  trills  and 
cadences  ?  Were  there  no  great  loves  in  these  "  lonesome, 
latter  years  ";  or  did  the  lovers  "  die  with  all  the  music 
in  them  ?  "  Or  did  the  inspiring  heroines,  the  wonder- 
women,  appear  no  more?  Ah,  well  —  it  were  hard  to 
picture  Deirdre  or  Emer  in  latter-day  Dublin. 


48  THE)    PLOUGH    AND    THE)    CROSS 

The  door  was  suddenly  opened,  and  a  ringing,  girlish 
laugh  chimed  with  the  music. 

"  So  this  is  the  way  the  editors  of  the  New  Age  spend 
their  mornings !  Or  do  you  turn  out  the  paper  by  music? 
—  is  it  a  case  of  faire  d'une  pierre  deux  coups?  " 

The  music  had  stopped  with  a  crash.  Fergus  could 
not  speak  for  a  few  moments  for  pure  astonishment. 
He  had  not  thought  that  Elsie  O'Kennedy  was  nearer  than 
Paris. 

That  extremely  lively  and'  engaging  young  lady  might 
be  the  Spirit  of  Laughter.  She  did  what  few  men  or 
women  can  do  —  she  laughed  beautifully  and  musically. 
Her  mind  and  her  lithe  body,  her  lips,  teeth,  eyes,  fore 
head,  even  the  saucy  tresses  balanced  above  her  brows, 
seemed  to  join  in  the  laughter,  which  had  a  singular,  an 
indiscribable,  serenity,  a  rare  mixture  of  fun  and  sweet 
ness.  It  was  a  fascinating  facial  concert,  and  the  culmin 
ation  of  its  fascination  was  the  sense  and  impression  that 
it  was  all  inspired  not  so  much  by  anything  in  the  outer 
world  as  by  some  spirit  at  the  back  of  her  mind,  and  higher 
even  than  her  own  personality,  a  spirit  that  could  take 
an  infinately  zestful  but  infinitely  kindly  view  of  human 
oddity;  there  was  a  sense  of  the  eternal  in  it.  Fergus, 
nonplussed  for  a  moment,  felt,  as  he  had  often  felt  in  other 
years  of  their  piquant  companionship,  that  there  was 
something  honored  and  exalting  in  being  the  incident 
al  occasion  or  starting-point  of  such  a  dainty  revel  of 
laughter. 

The  laughter  ceased  very  slowly,  leaving  indeed  in  her 
face  what  he  felt  might  be  described  as  laughter's  grace 
ful  twilight,  which  had  the  suggestion,  too,  that  it  might 


49 

start  glowing  again  at  any  moment  on  the  slightest  provo 
cation.  In  this  delicate  and  trembling  poise  between 
laughter  and  seriousness,  Elsie's  beauty  was  more  palpa 
ble;  but  her  eyes  and  the  lines  of  her  face  revealed  un 
expectedly  an  intensity  of  sympathy  and  affection,  with 
curious  suggestions  of  sadness.  The  fact  that  in  air  and 
guise  she  was  girlish,  and  in  years  only  in  the  first  stage 
of  womanhood,  gave  an  odd  and  touching  interest  to  this 
spiritual  and  mental  maturity.  Keen,  thoughtful,  beau 
tiful  eyes,  and  an  intellectual  forehead  added  to  the 
piquancy  she  presented  —  that  of  womanliness  in  a  child- 
sylph's  figure  and  form. 

"  I  was  thinking  of  Deirdre  —  and  you  came !  "  said 
Fergus,  as  he  gave  her  a  welcoming  kiss  —  their  relation 
ship  and  engaging  intercourse  permitted  the  privilege, 
though  for  the  first  time  in  his  experience  the  kiss  was 
attended  with  a  slight  sense  of  embarrassment  on  his  part, 
which  seemed  to  add  to  the  pleasure  of  the  act.  He 
thought  the  next  moment  that  the  inner  realms  of  being 
had  grown  wondrously  sunny  and  subtle,  set  somehow  to 
music. 

"A  friend  or  conventional  person  would  have  an 
nounced  the  good  tidings,  given  notice  of  the  date  of  your 
arrival,  if  only  by  a  day  or  two,"  he  protested.  "  Your 
last  letter  said  '  sometime  in  the  summer.'  Summer  in 
Ireland  does  not  mean  a  particular  day,  but  a  whole 
season.  Samhradh  was  indeed  the  term  which  you  used 
—  quite  correct  Irish  —  but  that  has  the  same  signi 
ficance." 

Face,  eyes,  forehead  and  tresses  laughed  in  concert 
again. 


5O  THE    PlyOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

"•  You  answered  that  the  day  I  'd  come  would  be  the 
beginning  of  Summer,  and  surely  an  editor  of  the  New 
Morning  knows  at  least  when  summer  begins.  Besides, 
I  sent  a  telepathic  message." 

"  Unfortunately,  even  in  Ireland,  the  science  of  tele 
pathy  is  only  in  its  infancy " 

"  Like  the  wisdom  and  piety  of  certain  self-elected 
leaders  of  a  much-led  people.  Well,  with  characteristic 
impetuosity  I  '  seized  the  skirts  of  happy  chance.'  Madam 
Madcap,  in  a  glorious  mood  of  rashness,  decided  suddenly 
that  she  needed  the  tonic  of  an  American  trip,  and  also 
that  Uncle  Sam  has  something  to  learn  in  the  way  of 
kindness  to  domestic  animals.  So  her  faithful  secretary 
is  free  for  a  spell,  and  naturally  turned  to  her  native 
land." 

The  lady  referred  to  rather  lightly  as  "  Madame  Mad 
cap  "  was  really  a  very  wealthy  and  important  person, 
with  a  profound  sense  of  her  own  sanity  as  against  that 
of  her  contemporaries.  She  believed  that  a  deeper  sense 
of  domesticity,  and  especially  a  fonder  enthusiasm  for 
animals,  would  hasten  the  evolution  of  the  race  and 
accelerate  the  fruition  of  Nature's  purpose  by  tens  of 
thousands  of  years.  The  curious  but  artistic  little  maga 
zines  she  issued,  like  La  Vie  Domestique,  Les  Animaux 
U tiles,  and  (in  the  English-speaking  world)  Home  Pets, 
Puss  in  Candle-light,  etc.,  were  in  their  way  unique.  Elsie 
had  been  for  some  time  her  secretary,  and  in  Elsie's 
devotion  to  her  mistress's  mission  that  mistress  had  a 
lively  faith.  .  .  . 

Often,  in  after  days,  Fergus  O'Hagan  re-pictured  that 
morning  scene,  though  he  found  it  no  easy  matter  to  re- 


call  the  apparently  erratic  and  lightsome  conversation. 
He  knew  at  once  that  a  presence  delightfully  sprightly 
and  joyous  had  suddenly  glided  into  life. 

In  the  glow  of  question  and  answer,  of  comment  and 
blithe  retort,  he  wondered  why  it  was  that  he  felt  so 
much  gladder  than  on  the  hundreds  of  occasions  in  other 
years  when  he  had  chatted  with  Elsie  just  as  gaily.  True, 
the  sprightly  child,  whom  in  their  years  in  the  South  he 
had  treated  so  airily,  taken  keen  delight  in  ruffling  her 
sensibilities  for  the  pleasure  of  hearing  her  caustic  retorts 
—  a  daintiness  and  tartness  of  style  about  her  most 
pungent  shafts  —  had  developed  rare  beauty  as  well  as 
piquant  grace.  But  these  were  not  things  of  today  or 
yesterday,  though  they  had  never  struck  him  so  decisively 
before.  Perhaps  the  old  music  of  the  Gael  had  tuned  his 
spirit  up  to  a  keener  sensitiveness  and  receptivity  to 
charm ;  Nature  may  make  an  old  fiddle  go  farther  than 
we  wot  of. 

"  You  have  not  yet  answered  my  question,  Fergus 
O'Hagan,"  said  Elsie,  as  she  seated  herself  in  the  editorial 
chair  which  he  had  vacated ;  "  do  you  turn  out  your 
strenuous  and  impossible  paper  to  music?  Is  this  the 
secret  of  your  dazzling  dreams  and  schemes?  Often,  as  I 
read  your  flights,  I  picture  you  as  a  Cloud-Sweeper. 
You  want  not  merely  to  reform  Ireland  and  make  her 
glow,  but  to  sweep  her  clouds  and  keep  her  skies  perfect." 

"  I  know  a  much  more  dainty  and  artistic  Cloud- 
Sweeper,"  he  said  airily,  "  a  singular  blend  of  child  and 
girl  and  woman,  who,  with  airy  grace,  winsome  sympathy, 
intellectual  keenness  and  piquancy  of  imagination  and 
temper,  clears  all  the  clouds  from  the  mental  and  spiritual 


52  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

atmosphere :  which  is  something  a  long  way  more  complex 
than  the  physical  one." 

Elsie's  face  resumed  its  quizzical  air,  and  the  concert 
showed  signs  of  restarting. 

"  Do  the  editors  of  the  New  Ireland,  which  is  the  old, 
really  talk  that  way  in  their  off-duty  moments?  Be  it 
known  to  you  that  my  fragile  constitution  cannot  stand 
it.  Madam  Madcap  on  domestic  pets  is  bad  enough, 
and  I've  also  been  reading  French  travellers  on  the 
Gaelic  revival.  Remember  always  that  I  Ve  come  on  what 
I  mean  to  be  a  mad  and  merry  holiday.  Primitive  aban 
don  has  resumed  its  sway  in  me.  I  feel  a  perfect  primeval 
savage.  Beware,  O  Man  of  the  Golden  Mists!  Come 
down  to  the  earth,  O  Cloud-Sweeper !  " 

He  took  her  round  the  building,  which  was  earthly 
enough  in  all  conscience.  He  knew  that,  child  of  the 
fields  and  the  glens  as  she  was,  it  was  difficult  for  her  to 
keep  still  in  an  office.  He  explained  machinery  and 
answered  questions  about  home  life  and  national  affairs, 
and  replied  to  lively  sallies  as  well  as  one  could  do  when 
all  had  to  be  done  at  the  same  time.  The  workers  in  the 
case-room  and  the  machine-room  were  not  dangerously 
sensitive  to  feminine  verve  and  beauty,  but  they  seemed 
to  feel  a  new  presence  in  the  air. 

"  It  strikes  me,  Fergus  O'Hagan,"  said  Elsie,  when  they 
had  returned  to  the  office,  "  that  your  home  life  these 
times  must  be  rather  spasmodic  as  well  as  nomadic. 
You  would  not  come  up  to  Madame  Madcap's  ideal  at 
all,  and  with  all  her  Church  concerns  I  wonder  how 
Maeve  stands  it  ?  " 

"  I  really  don't  know,"  he  declared  lightly,  "  how  far 


KivSiK  O'KENNE}DY  53 

and  how  subtly  my  home  life  extends.  Apart  from  the 
Boyne  Valley  magic,  I  have  the  witchery  of  the  Dublin 
Mountains  and  Killiney  Hill  and  the  Bay.  Also  I  've  a 
lovely  assortment  of  enchanted  islands  round  the  coast. 
I  feel  I  'd  like  to  take  you  to  one  or  other  of  them  today. 
You  'd  go  charmingly  with  an  enchanted  island." 

In  point  of  fact  what  they  decided  to  do,  when  he  had 
told  her  of  his  own  earlier  intention,  was  to  go  down  by 
the  early  afternoon  train  to  the  Boyne  Valley,  see  the 
wonders  of  the  Meath  experiment,  and  return  by  the  last 
train  in  the  evening.  Maeve  would  then  be  probably  at 
home  after  the  Church  and  missionary  concerns  which 
usually  filled  her  afternoons.  Elsie  was  charmed  with 
the  idea;  being  a  gladsome  child  of  the  country,  the 
prospect  of  the  Boyne  Valley  gave  wings  to  her  imagin 
ation.  She  thought,  however,  that  possibly  Maeve  might 
be  displeased  if  they  went  to  the  Boyne  Valley  without 
first  seeing  herself.  Elsie  knew  she  was  hypersensitive 
on  some  points. 

"  She  's  not  at  home  for  a  certainty/'  said  Fergus,  "and 
she  's  too  busy  with  Church  concerns  in  the  afternoon  to 
think  of  us ;  her  mind  would  not  '  take  in  '  non-eccle 
siastical  concerns  like  ourselves  at  the  same  time.  Besides 
she  's  sharp  till  some  time  after  her  last  daily  encounter 
with  a  curate.  It's  best  to  take  her  in  the  twilight. 
Charming  as  she  is,  she  is  growing  testy  on  Church 
matters,  and  lectures  me  severely  for  allowing  advanced 
Maynooth  men  any  show  in  the  paper.  If  you  have  liberal 
Catholic  tendencies,  as  I  gather  from  your  letters,  be 
exceedingly  careful,  and  never  say  '  Loisy '  for  the  world. 
I  'd  rather  be  put  on  the  Index  than  under  the  cold 


54  TH#  PivOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

gleam  of  her  eye  when  she  fancies  she  has  detected 
1  golden  heresy  '  in  a  written  or  spoken  word.  It  really 
drives  me  to  the  Boyne  Valley  more  often  than  I  quite 
want  to  go." 

"  I  can't  understand  all  this  fine  fury  about  the  land  and 
country  work/'  Elsie  said.  "At  first  I  thought  it  was  a 
passing  phase,  like  Ruskin's  road-making,  or  a  luke-warm 
indiscretion  like  Maeve's  gardening.  But  it  seems  to  be 
growing  a  sort  of  religion  with  you.  Is  it  a  new  and 
subtle  form  of  earth-worship?" 

"  It  is  new  in  the  sense  in  which  everything  good  in 
the  Ireland  of  today  is  new  —  a  return  to  the  old  and 
human.  I  sometimes  wish  that  we  could  sack  and  burn 
Dublin.  With  the  epic  blaze  and  homelessness  our  com 
mon  humanity  and  sociability  would  be  shaken  up  into 
life  again.  Then  we  'd  all  set  to  work  on  an  equality,  and 
establish  a  new  city  on  co-operative  and  human  lines, 
and  looking  back  on  the  bad  old  days  come  gradually  to 
imagine  the  slums  and  the  selfishness  were  nightmares." 

"  But  you  can't  dig  gracefully,  or  hold  a  plough  proper 
ly  —  when  you  used  to  try  years  ago,  the  plough  always 
went  too  far  into  the  ground,  and  someone  had  to  haul 
it  up  for  you.  Is  that  farm  purely  imaginary,  and  are 
you  taking  me  down,  sir,  to  the  Boyne  Valley  under  false 
pretenses  ?  " 

"  I  overlook  the  legend  about  my  early  efforts  as  a 
toiler.  The  farm  is  a  substantial  reality,  but  small  — 
just  a  few  acres,  but  there  's  a  quaint  old  house  with  which 
you  '11  positively  fall  in  love.  A  morning's  or  an  after 
noon's  labor  on  the  land  is  a  joy.  Of  course,  I  haven't 
time  for  a  great  deal  of  the  work  —  I  told  you  in  an 


O'KENNEDY  55 

early  letter  that  I  'd  brought  Sean  O'Carroll  and  his  wife 
from  home  to  look  after  place  and  house,  and  Sean 
is  quite  in  love  with  his  duties.  Kevin  and  Art  (his 
brothers)  have  small  farms  and  homes  hard  by;  in  fact, 
there  's  a  little  home  colony  there  already." 

Elsie  thought  that  transplanting  Munster  folk  in 
Meath  was  a  somewhat  doubtful  experiment. 

"  It  depends  on  the  folk,"  said  Fergus.  "  It 's  some 
thing  to  get  ready-made  associations  and  pleasant  human 
ity  in  a  fresh  situation.  Still  more  pioneers  are  coming, 
to  break  up  the  adjoining  grass  lands,  and  try  life  happily 
'on  the  basis  of  humanity  and  co-operation.  When  Mr. 
Milligan,  in  his  old  age,  got  his  great  idea  of  starting 
pleasant  factories  amidst  the  fields  and  breaking  up  the 
grass  ranches,  he  was  faced  by  the  fact  that  most  of 
Meath  was  a  lonely  desert,  and  that  most  of  the  poor  folk 
left  had  absolutely  lost  all  interest  in  the  soil  and  in 
Nature.  So  bold  measures  had  to  be  taken." 

Elsie's  laughter  rang  musically. 

"And  the  boldest,"  she  said,  "  was  to  lean  for  support 
on  one  who  plays  the  fiddle  during  office  hours,  and  whose 
letters  are  partly  poetry  and  partly  prose  fancies." 

"  Yes,  when  I  write  to  the  fair  and  frivolous-minded," 
he  answered.  "  Mr.  Milligan  is  something  of  a  poet  him 
self,  though  his  stanzas  are  gardens,  and  he  liked  my 
imaginative  touches  as  much  as  what  I  said  about  seeds. 
He  even  appreciated  the  '  cloud-sweeping,'  though  we 
differed  a  little  at  first  on  the  subject  of  crows.  I  said 
that  crows  give  a  place  an  air  at  once  homely  and  im 
memorial ;  he  said  the  crow  is  a  bit  of  an  artist,  but  a 
large  deal  of  a  thief.  We  still  quarrel  humorously  about 


56  THIS    PLOUGH    AND    THL)    CROSS 

crows.  Anyhow,  we  became  great  friends  through  the 
things  I  wrote  on  the  rural  problem,  and  how  to  break 
the  spell  of  the  Great  Blight,  and  I  easily  found  him 
tenants,  becoming  one  in  a  way  myself.  The  paper  cham 
pions  the  land  as  well  as  the  language  movement,  and  he 
supplies  the  funds  with  a  kindly  hand." 

"  Not  too  kindly/'  said  Elsie,  laughing  again.  "  You 
have  the  humblest-looking  establishment  in  that  part  of 
the  uncivilized  world  which  publishes  newspapers.  Your 
compositors  —  tell  me,  does  Mr.  Milligan  look  upon  them 
in  the  same  light  as  crows  ?  " 

"  There  is  a  golden  idea  underlying  our  humility," 
Fergus  answered.  "  Mr.  Milligan  does  not  see  the  good 
of  expensive  machinery  at  first.  He  says  we  had  better 
proceed  from  modest  things  to  great,  growing  gradually 
with  the  land  zest  and  the  language  movement.  Better 
a  crazy  printing  machine,  and  a  new  cottage  industry, 
than  a  modern  machine  and  less  money  left  for  the 
industry  and  the  land  schemes.  Indeed,  he  doesn't  like 
type-setting  machines  at  all,  because  they  mean  throwing 
'comps'  on  the  world.  And  the  comps  will  be  paid  ever 
so  much  better  when  they  come  to  develop  an  artistic  en 
thusiasm  for  their  work  —  he  has  been  studying  William 
Morris  and  the  Kelmscott  Press.  You  may  come  to  see 
our  'comps'  set  type  to  Irish  music,  and  study  Greek 
philosophy  and  Irish  poetry  at  the  close  of  the  dinner- 
hour." 

"  I  've  been  reading  a  good  deal  about  Irish  industries 
lately,"  said  Elsie ;  "  but  I  did  not  think  that  the  dream- 
industry  and  the  manufacture  of  golden  halos  had  made 
such  enlivening  progress." 


C    O'KENNEDY  57 


"  The  Boyne  Valley  dream  is  the  brightest  of  all,"  said 
Fergus.  "  We  have  just  made  the  beginning,  and  hope 
to  show  what  human  and  beautiful  creations  hand  and 
mind  combined  can  compass  in  the  gracious  country.  We 
are  hoping  in  due  course  to  see  sundry  kinds  of  crafts 
men  attracted  to  live  in  the  Boyne  Valley,  where  they 
could  work  so  much  better  than  in  the  city.  Mentally 
benumbed  and  plodding  Dublin  may  wake  up  one  day  to 
find  a  new  social  magic  a  few  leagues  beyond  its  sordid 
slums  -  " 

"And  crows  wearing  golden  feathers,  and  listening 
entranced  to  the  music  of  —  the  fiddle." 

"  You  try  very  piquantly  to  disguise  your  social  en 
thusiasm/'  he  said.  "  You  will  be  a  Cloud-Sweeper  yet 
yourself." 

It  was  time  to  think  of  lunch,  and  they  descended. 
He  arranged  for  the  despatch  of  luggage,  and  sent  a 
note  to  Maeve.  As  they  fared  into  the  sunny  street  the 
cares  and  problems  of  life  seemed  to  have  melted  away. 


CHAPTER  VII 

AN    ARISTOCRATIC    IMMAN^NTIST 

ERGUS    O'HAGAN,"    said    Elsie,    when 
they  had  come  out  upon  the  quays,  and 
turned    in    the    direction    of    O'Connell 
Bridge,   "  I   don't   wonder   at  your   idea 
of  the   prime   necessity   of   sacking   and 
burning  Dublin.     'Tis  worse  than  '  Paris 
grown   old    and   ugly,'    for   even   in   old 
age    and   ugliness    Paris    would    still    have    a 
certain    distinction   and    esprit.      Between  the 
hills  and  the  bay  Dublin  seems  a  shabby  anti 
climax." 

"  It  is  lovely  in  the  mornings,"  he  said.  "  No  poet  or 
artist  could  do  justice  to  the  alluring  and  mysterious  love 
liness  of  Dublin  in  the  'earliness'  of  a  sunny  morning; 
for  it  is  then  not  merely  a  question  of  light  and  color, 
but  of  a  spirit  in  the  air,  in  quite  a  mystic  and  indefinable 
sense  —  it  brings  you  a  new  suggestion,  I  might  say  a 
revelation,  of  the  mystery  and  wonder  of  so-called 
'  matter.'  In  a  sense  it  is  more  suggestive  than  starlight 
—  the  deep  human  thrill  is  grander.  But  in  the  sober 
day  Dublin  seems  to  exist  chiefly  for  the  humiliation  of 
Irish  idealists  of  all  kinds." 


AN    ARISTOCRATIC    IMMAN^NTIST  59 

Certainly,  taking  the  most  charitable  and  picturesque 
view  possible,  the  houses  on  the  quays  had  a  mean  or 
an  antiquated  appearance.  The  streets  and  lanes  that 
branched  off  the  main  course  were  dingy  and  squalid. 
The  people  at  every  stage  had  a  listless,  inert,  unkempt 
air;  the  children  were  bedraggled,  neglected,  and  bois 
terous.  Here,  plainly,  was  not  a  place  where  men  thought 
or  wrought  to  any  brave  purpose ;  here  there  was  not  the 
least  suggestion  of  any  consciousness  of  divinity  in  life. 
Folk  just  haggled  and  lounged  and  gossiped,  and  went  to 
sleep.  Yet  the  lovely  day  and  sky  seemed  a  divine  incite 
ment  to  men  to  adventure  nobly. 

A  man  in  striking  and  picturesque  costume  hailed 
Fergus  from  the  other  side  of  the  street  —  he  and  Elsie 
were  now  walking  by  the  river  wall.  He  had  fine 
features,  clear,  kindly  eyes,  and  an  expression  of  curious 
ly  mingled  eagerness  and  peace.  He  hastened  over,  and 
Fergus  introduced  his  friend  Lord  Strathbarra  to  Elsie. 
In  the  introduction  and  the  complimentary  Irish  phrases 
that  followed  he  gave  Lord  Strathbarra  to  understand 
that  Elsie  was  a  very  special  and  original  friend  indeed. 
He,  did  so  in  order  that  his  lordship  might  open  his  mind 
freely.  When  he  opened  his  mind  he  was  intensely  inter 
esting.  A  meeting  with  him,  even  a  chance  meeting,  was 
an  event,  and  Fergus  wanted  to  know  what  unconven 
tional  project  he  had  last  arrived  at. 

Lord  Strathbarra  was  in  a  hurry.  So  far  as  the 
physical  plane  was  concerned  he  was  nearly  always  in  a 
hurry,  for  from  his  isle  in  the  Hebridean  seas  he  made 
many  and  strange  tours  to  Ireland,  Brittany,  Paris,  Spain, 
Florence,  Rome,  and  elsewhere.  Intellectually  and  spirit- 


60  TH£    PLOUGH    AND    THK    CROSS 

tially  he  was  always  at  ease,  for  his  mental  life  was  passed 
either  with  the  early  Fathers,  or  in  a  far-off  Millennium 
of  Church  and  State,  where  a  liberal-minded  Papacy,  a 
happy  world  of  expert  lay  theologians,  and  a  cultured 
clergy  made  life  serene,  and  respected  the  light  which 
enlighteneth  every  man  that  cometh  into  this  world.  As 
he  tested  contemporary  ecclesiastics  and  laics  by  the  stand 
ards  of  the  Fathers,  on  the  one  hand,  and  this  distant 
Golden  Age  on  the  other,  his  criticism,  though  expressed 
with  beatific  serenity,  was  apt  to  sound  severe.  He  was 
an  Irish  language  enthusiast,  as  well  as  a  Scottish  Gaelic 
one,  and  already  had  visions  of  a  national  liturgy.  He 
came  of  the  Irish  aristocracy,  but  his  home  and  most  of 
his  property  were  Scottish,  and  he  had  bold  schemes  for 
colonizing  certain  of  his  Hebridean  moors  and  hills  with 
Gaels  of  both  nations.  Even  those  who  distrusted  or 
dreaded  his  religious  theories  admitted  that  he  and  his 
isle  made  a  picturesque  appeal  to  the  imagination. 

"  I  was  coming  to  see  you,"  he  said  to  Fergus.  "  You 
are  making  a  serious  mistake  both  as  individual  and  as 
editor.  You  are  diffusing  your  energies  and  trying  to 
see  and  treat  of  too  much  of  Irish  life.  Most  of  it  does 
not  matter  at  all  —  at  least  for  the  present.  Before  we 
can  tackle  any  of  these  social  and  literary  questions  with 
effect  we  must  first  settle  the  crucial  question  of  Ireland's 
relation  to  Rome  —  whether  she  is  to  be  a  Daughter  of 
the  Church,  respected  and  honored  as  a  daughter  in  the 
family,  or  whether  she  is  to  be  a  servant  of  the  Papacy  — 
to  be  the  real  Prisoner  of  the  Vatican.  That  I  fear,  sums 
up  her  present  position." 

"  I  'd  be  perfectly  content,"  said  Fergus,  with  a  smile, 


AN    ARISTOCRATIC   IMMAN^NTIST  6 1 

"  if  I  could  help  to  get  Ireland  to  try  simple  Christianity. 
That,  I  tell  our  Maynooth  friends,  is  the  real  problem, 
when  they  go  into  the  mazes  of  Church  history  and 
ecclesiastical  jurisprudence." 

"  Simple  Christianity !  "  exclaimed  Lord  Strathbarra. 
"  Why,  that  is  what  we  are  all  trying  to  keep  to,  and 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  will  not  let  us.  They  have 
gradually  driven  us  laymen  from  all  part  in  Church 
affairs,  and  if  we  try  to  assert  our  point  of  view  through 
the  State  they  make  war  upon  the  State,  as  in  France. 
I  hear  that  the  alarm  and  confusion  at  Rome  are  great 
—  it  was  all  beginning  when  I  was  there  last  year  —  the 
panic  of  the  older  and  conservative  ecclesiastics  before 
the  march  of  modern  ideas,  which  are  really  the  old 
ideas,  is  grievous,  and  there  is  the  gravest  danger  that 
they  may  put  the  Church  herself  in  a  hopelessly  false 
position.  In  effect  their  tendency  is  to  make  their  own 
fears  and  prejudices  infallible,  and  to  over-ride  the  great 
body  of  tradition  and  precedent  that  has  been  the  safe 
guard  of  the  faithful  for  ages." 

"  In  that  case,"  said  Fergus,  "  it  is  they  who  are  the 
real  Modernists,  to  use  a  term  that  is  becoming  familiar." 

"  Precisely,"  said  Lord  Strathbarra ;  "  I  said  some 
thing  to  the  same  effect  to  Loisy  when  I  was  last  in  Paris. 
A  White  Terrpr  is  coming  in  the  Church,  and  the  rights 
of  the  individual  Catholic's  conscience,  Newman  and 
others  notwithstanding,  will  presently  no  longer  be  safe, 
while  an  intellectual  spirit  and  a  tendency  to  appeal  to 
Church  history  on  the  part  of  laymen,  or  educated,  think 
ing  priests,  will  be  regarded  as  a  deadly  offense.  Ireland 
will  have  to  make  up  her  mind  definitely  as  to  her 


62  THE;  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

position  —  Daughter  of  the  Church  or  Prisoner  of  the 
Vatican." 

Elsie  laughed,  and  the  musical  revel  of  her  laughter 
at  first  startled  and  then  attracted  Lord  Strathbarra. 

"  Excuse  my  laughing,"  she  said.  "  I  did  not  think 
the  story  was  that  way  still.  Isn't  it  really  time  to  dis 
sociate  the  Church  and  melodrama?  Is  there  really  need 
for  any  more  raging  battles  to  prove  what  is  perfect 
Christianity?  Would  it  not  be  better  for  the  combatants 
to  retire  to  different  hills  and  deserts  and  think  it  out, 
then  come  back  and  practise  it?  Contemplation  is  surely 
a  surer  way  than  blows." 

Lord  Strathbarra  smiled  in  grateful  and  admiring 
surprise. 

"  That  is  nobly  true,"  he  declared.  "  But  it  might  be 
anathema  to  the  conservative  and  militant  theologians. 
Theirs  to  lay  down  the  law,  ours  not  to  reason  why.  In 
modern  times  the  contemplative  and  the  searching  mind 
is  suspect." 

"  Your  irony  is  excusable,"  said  Fergus.  "  It  touches 
a  sad  and  puzzling  fact  in  certain  ecclesiastical  circles. 
I  am  hoping  that  they  are  not  representative." 

"  I  'm  afraid  that  they  prevail  in  Ireland,"  said  Lord 
Strathbarra ;  "  but  my  new  island  scheme  may  set  them 
thinking." 

Fergus  was  on  the  point  of  asking  what  the  new  scheme 
might  be,  but  Elsie  spoke  first. 

"  Excuse  me,"  she  said,  wearing  an  expression  in  which 
gravity  and  gaiety  were  delightfully  mixed,  "  perhaps  I 
am  simple  and  uninformed  in  regard  to  these  great  issues, 
but  I  really  cannot  understand  why  the  contemplative  and 


AN    ARISTOCRATIC    IMMAN^NTIST  63 

the  searching  mind  should  be  looked  upon  with  disfavor 
by  ecclesiastical  authorities." 

"  It  might  break  out  against  formalism  and  ecclesi 
astical  jurisprudence,"  answered  Lord  Strathbarra,  "  and 
you  see " 

"  Yet  —  yet  —  ,"  said  Elsie,  whose  face  was  serious, 
though  her  eyes  were  quizzical,  "  did  not  revelation  and 
true  Christian  living  precede  the  theological  system,  to 
say  nothing  of  ecclesiastical  jurisprudence?  Are  not 
revelation,  spiritual  experience,  and  Christian  living  the 
really  important  considerations  still?  Is  not  the  spiritual 
life  something  immeasurably  more  important  than  ecclesi 
astical  jurisprudence?" 

Lord  Strathbarra  looked  more  pleased  and  more  grate 
ful  than  before. 

"  You  express  it  daringly  and  splendidly,"  he  said. 
"  But  to  talk  of  the  spiritual  life  and  inner  inspiration, 
and  their  right  and  guidance,  as  against  outer  ecclesi 
astical  legislation,  might  be  dangerous  heresy  these  times. 
It  reminds  me  of  the  saying  of  one  of  the  advanced 
ecclesiastics  at  Rome  that  every  man's  soul  is  infallible." 

"And  the  business  of  the  Pope,  according  to  Newman, 
is  to  help  the  spiritual  life  of  the  individual  Catholic," 
said  Fergus. 

"  I  dare  say  I  reason  out  things  in  a  primitive  way," 
said  Elsie,  smiling  as  before.  "  But  this  is  how  it  strikes 
me.  Would  not  what  a  gardener  does  for  a  rose  be  of 
no  avail  if  a  Power  infinitely  greater  than  the  gardener 
had  not  implanted  within  itself  the  capacity  to  rose-grow, 
if  I  may  put  it  that  way?  The  gardener  can  only  tend 
the  rose,  and  does  not  give  it  what  is  all-important  and 


64  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

essential  in  it.  So  surely,  with  the  ecclesiastic  and  the 
soul,  and  its  own  spiritual  experience.  He  should  not 
try  to  dictate  to  it  or  thwart  it ;  he  should  only  help  it, 
and  wonder  reverently  over  it." 

Lord  Strathbarra  smiled  admiringly. 

"  You  are  so  wise  and  direct/'  he  said,  "  that  I  am 
sorry  I  am  pressed  for  time  today.  I  would  like  to  wait 
and  find  out  what  you  think  of  the  scholastic  philosophy. 
I  hope  I  shall  see  you  in  my  island  home  in  the  Hebrides, 
when  we  have  got  the  new  work  under  way." 

Fergus  expressed  a  lively  curiosity  as  to  the  new  work. 

"  I  have  not  decided  on  all  the  details  yet,"  Lord  Strath 
barra  replied,  "  otherwise  I  'd  have  written  to  you  about 
it.  I  must  discuss  them  very  carefully  with  my  liberal 
Catholic  friends  in  Maynooth,  Rome,  and  Paris.  It 's  a 
happy  development  of  my  original  colonization  scheme." 

"  I  know  that  you  want  to  gather  to  Strathbarra  vigor 
ous  and  strong-minded  Gaels  of  both  nations,  who  are  in 
the  process  of  revolt  against  modern  '  civilization/  "  said 
Fergus. 

"  I  hope  now  to  do  even  better,"  said  Lord  Strathbarra. 
"  The  signs  are  that  war  will  be  declared  on  those  inde 
pendent-minded  Catholics,  whether  priests  or  laymen,  who 
stand  for  the  old  Catholicism  and  the  revelation  of  their 
own  spiritual  lives,  and  the  real  Communion  of  Saints 
of  all  times  and  lands,  against  the  growing  claims  and 
assumptions  of  Rome  and  ultramontanism.  Individually, 
perhaps,  they  could  be  crushed  or  caused  to  lose  heart. 
Brought  —  after  they  have  been  denounced  or  suspended 
—  to  beautiful  and  remote  Strathbarra,  in  the  Celtic  Sea, 
theirs  would  be  a  new  and  congenial  life.  They  would 


AN    ARISTOCRATIC   IMMANENTlST  65 

hearten  and  fire  one  another  and  in  divers  ways  could 
plan  bold  enterprises  for  thought  and  truth  in  the  soul- 
struggle  of  the  Catholic  world  against  formalism  and 
ultramontanism  and  ecclesiastical  aggression.  We  could 
have  a  liberal  Catholic  college,  printing  press,  and  other 
great  needs  in  the  island.  Our  clerics  and  laics  could 
learn  the  printing,  book-binding,  and  other  trades,  and 
keep  themselves  in  form  and  spirit  by  incidental  work  on 
the  land.  Everyone  knows  that  the  early  missionaries  and 
religious  pioneers  did  manual  work  as  well  as  intellectual 
and  spiritual  work." 

11  You  certainly  strike  the  imagination,  as  you  always 
do,"  said  Fergus.  "  I  know  that  you  are  practically  a 
king  in  your  island,  and  also  that  you  are  rich  enough 
to  make  big  experiments " 

"  This  experiment  will  make  history  in  the  Church," 
declared  Lord  Strathbarra  with  enthusiasm. 

"  Rome,  however,  will  have  something  to  say  to  you " 

"If  the  Vatican  becomes  unreasonable,"  said  Lord 
Strathbarra  calmly,  "  we  can  enter  into  communion  with 
the  Greek  Church.  She  will  gladly  allow  us  our  Gaelic 
liturgy  amongst  other  things." 

"Are  women,  even  reverent  ones,  to  be  allowed  to  tread 
your  unique  island  ?  "  asked  Elsie  gaily. 

Lord  Strathbarra,  who  was  a  handsome  and  dignified 
man,  still  young,  smiled  and  bowed  gracefully. 

"  I  'd  be  charmed  to  have  you  as  a  permanent  resident," 
he  said.  "  Your  liberality  and  vividness  of  mind  on  theo 
logical  issues  are  simply  wonderful  for  a  young  lady." 

Fergus  began  to  be  conscious  of  a  mysterious  shadow 
on  the  pleasure  of  the  meeting  with  Lord  Strathbarra. 


66  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

The  latter  again  remembered  that  he  was  in  a  hurry. 
He  did  not  think,  however,  of  hurrying  away  at  once. 
He  spoke  of  Maynooth  and  Rome,  of  lectures  he  had  to 
give,  advanced  ecclesiastics  he  had  to  meet,  and  of  the 
signs  of  new  life  he  observed  in  Ireland.  Were  they  all, 
he  wondered,  the  first  flush  of  the  dawn  of  a  renaissance? 
It  was  grand  to  picture  Ireland,  after  long  ordeals  and 
long  stagnation,  waking  up  within  the  guardian  sea  and 
achieving  great  things  for  intellectual  and  spiritual  free 
dom.  But  he  was  not  sure  of  her  initiative  and  staying 
.power,  and  returned  fondly  to  the  example  which  his 
Hebridean  isle,  and  its  gallant  gathered  Gaels  in  the  new 
day,  would  set  her.  Even  the  boldest  modern  spirits  of 
Rome  and  Paris  would  be  proud  of  it.  He  left  them  in 
the  peaceful  early  afternoon  light  with  the  suggestion 
that  Europe  was  on  the  brink  of  intellectual  and  spiritual 
revolution,  and  that  Ireland  could  not,  if  she  would, 
escape. 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,  how  grim  and  grave  you  look," 
said  Elsie  blithely,  as  they  proceeded  on  their  way  to 
O'Connell  Street.  "  I  suppose  you  are  shocked  at  my 
rose  and  my  gardener,  and  my  boldness  generally.  You 
are  a  man,  and  therefore  conservative-minded." 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,"  he  replied,  "  I  was  struck  by 
your  point  and  directness,  though  you  are  not  the  first 
to  press  the  rose  and  the  gardener  into  service.  I  was 
thinking,  as  I  have  been  thinking  lately,  how  wonderfully 
your  mind  is  growing  —  you  are  a  girl  no  longer  —  and  I 
have  the  feeling  that  it  has  no  business  to  grow  without 
my  leave  and  supervision  as  of  old.  'Tis  uncomfortable 
to  find  you  developing  an  individuality,  however  charm- 


AN    ARISTOCRATIC    IMMANKNTIST  67 

ing,  of  which  I  have  not  the  daily  superintending,  as  I 
used  to  have  when  you  were  a  blithe  and  caustic  child." 

"  The  conceit  of  some  self-appointed  leaders  of  the 
people  is  Olympian,"  she  answered  laughing,  "  but  I 
doubt  that  such  a  thought  would  bring  a  shade  to  your 
brow." 

"  Well,  I  was  thinking  of  the  future,  too,"  he  said. 
"  I  often  have  what  appear  to  be  premonitions  of  it.  Our 
spiritual  selves,  though  much  bound  up  with  bodies,  and 
consequently  chained  to  the  present,  do  not  belong  to  it 
alone ;  I  see  no  reason  why  they,  eternal  in  essence  as 
they  are,  cannot  occasionally  realize  in  some  measure 
what  is  coming  in  time  and  space  long  before  it  arrives. 
When  Lord  Strathbarra  was  speaking  I  seemed  to  see 
dimly  into  the  future,  and  it  was  not  all  pleasant." 

Elsie's  airiness  softened,  she  grew  playfully  serious 
and  curious;  but  without  seeming  to  do  so  he  changed 
the  subject. 

"  Questions  like  this  of  Immanence,"  he  said,  "  on 
which  Lord  Strathbarra  is  so  keen,  are  at  once  mighty 
and  terrible.  Sometimes  the  thought  of  it  all  sweeps 
through  me  like  an  inspiration;  sometimes  it  leaves  me 
very  lonely  and  distressed,  and  almost  afraid.  My  faith 
and  philosophy  of  the  universe  were  very  simple.  Now 
they  are  growing  complex.  I  cannot  help  the  change, 
but  I  do  not  like  the  transition.  The  change  is  as  when 
I  left  home,  with  all  its  simple  affection,  for  the  first 
time;  how  hard  it  was  to  reconcile  myself  to  the  wide 
world,  and  how  unfriendly  and  unseizable  it  seemed  at- 
first !  So  now,  as  I  come  to  read  new  and  wider  meanings 
into  the  old  symbols,  and  the  drama  of  the  universe  so 


68  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

vastly  widens,  the  intellect  doubtless  gains,  but  the  heart 
feels  lonely.  And  it  seems  sometimes  a  sort  of  treason 
not  to  be  able  to  read  the  old,  simple,  literal  meanings  in 
the  old  lore." 

"  Poor  boy !  "  said  Elsie,  with  a  mixture  of  gaiety  and 
gentleness ;  "  can't  you  remember  that  God  is  good,  and 
that  honest  thinking  and  right  living  are  the  point,  not 
conceptions  and  interpretations  of  the  universe?  Weren't 
Plato,  Dante,  and  so  on,  quite  incorrect  in  a  number  of 
their  data?  Surely  a  leader  of  the  people  does  not  need 
to  be  told  such  things." 

He  laughed.  Looking  at  Elsie  anyway  it  seemed  ab 
surd  to  trouble  about  the  universe.  He  felt  it  must  have 
a  fascinating  explanation. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
ARTHUR  O'MARA  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN 


HEN  Arthur  O'Mara  roused  him 
self,  and  found  that  he  had  fallen 
asleep  at  Maeve's  feet,  he  blushed 
and  laughed  and  rose  hastily. 
Maeve  had  not  yet  made  up  her 
mind  as  to  how  she  ought  to  feel 
in  regard  to  the  situation  or  the 
young  man,  but  she  thought  that 
a  cold  questioning  gaze  would  be 
the  best  temporary  expedient. 

"  I  had  a  very  extraordinary 
said  Arthur,  "  I  thought  that  you  and  I  were  in 
You  were  very  fascinating,  and  we 
kissed  each  other  most  of  the  time.  It  seemed  more 
natural  than  talking.  Life  appeared  divinely  intelligible, 
good,  and  beautiful ;  or  rather  there  was  no  question  of 
good  or  evil,  it  was  all  beauty.  Then  a  Maynooth  pro 
fessor  appeared  on  the  scene,  and  gave  a  terrible  lecture 
on  the  beastliness  and  corruption  of  woman.  Then  we 
both  felt  ashamed  of  ourselves.  We  stood  apart  in 
wretchedness  and  dismay;  everything  grew  ugly,  and 


dream, 

the  Garden  of  Eden. 


7°  THE  PLOUGH  AND  THE;  CROSS 

Eden  was  no  more.     Do  you  really  think,  Maeve,  that 
you  are  a  beastly  and  corrupt  young  person  ?  " 

He  asked  the  question  with  such  a  comic  air  of 
puzzled  gravity  that  she  laughed  outright. 

"  But  you  know  that  many  of  the  Fathers  and  the 
modern  theologians  declare  your  beastliness  and  sinful- 
ness  to  be  unbounded.  Of  course  they  don't  point  the 
ringer  of  scorn  at  you  individually,  but  when  they  say 
Woman  they  mean  You,  and  such  as  you,  not  an  abstrac 
tion.  Nobody  can  pretend  that  there's  so  much  vicious- 
ness  in  an  abstraction.  Isn't  it  grotesque  and  inhuman? 
You  know,  Maeve,  that  you  're  quite  beautiful  and  saintly, 
if  a  little  severe  in  the  temper  at  times." 

"  Don't  you  think  it  would  be  better  taste  to  leave 
personalities  out  of  the  question  ?  "  she  asked,  with  a  firm 
attempt  at  a  frown. 

"  But  in  such  a  matter  we  are  simply  driven  to  person 
alities.  What  do  we  know  of  Woman  apart  from  women  ? 
Our  preachers  declare  her  to  be  corrupt  and  beastly,  and 
a  snare  of  Satan.  We  come  to  her  and  find  her  delight 
fully  human,  and  with  a  great  deal  more  of  the  divine 
than  the  preachers  who  condemn  her  in  a  cloud  of  words. 
What  are  we  to  say?  It  seems  to  me  that  the  Church 
freed  and  raised  woman  to  her  rightful  place,  but  that 
Churchmen  laboriously  expend  their  energy  in  condemn 
ing  her  to  a  much  lower  status  than  that  from  which  the 
Church  originally  raised  her." 

"  You,  too,  have  fallen  into  the  dangerous  habit  of 
separating  the  Church  and  the  Churchmen,"  said  Maeve 
severely. 


ARTHUR  O'MARA  IN  ED£N  71 

"  No  theologian  will  quarrel  with  that  much  anyway. 
Your  friend  Bossuet  will  enlighten  you  on  the  point. 
You  know  what  he  taught  about  the  limitation  of  the 
Papal  authority.  But  to  return  to  woman.  I  wonder 
that  Irish  chivalry  has  not  withstood  the  Churchmen  in 
her  regard  before  this.  But  really  I  sometimes  wonder  if 
there 's  any  Irish  chivalry  at  all.  Most  Irishmen  are 
ashamed  or  afraid  to  fall  in  love  —  our  ideas  of  woman 
would  be  regarded  with  contempt  by  our  Pagan  fore 
fathers  —  the  Fianna,  for  example." 

"  And  are  you  quite  sure  that  the  Fianna  ever  existed 
at  all  ?  "  asked  Maeve. 

"  So  far  as  my  point  is  concerned  it  is  immaterial 
whether  they  existed  or  not.  If  they  were  invented,  the 
spirit  of  chivalry  towards  woman  must  have  existed  in 
the^minds  of  those  who  invented  them.  Their  marriages 
at  the  best  had  the  right  spirit,  though  they  lacked  the 
symbols  —  the  ring,  the  gold  and  silver,  and  so  on.  In 
Ireland  nowadays  we  often  lack  the  spirit  —  women  are 
bargained  for  like  cattle." 

"You  forget,"  said  Maeve  hotly,  "that  the  Church 
raises  marriage  to  the  dignity  of  a  sacrament." 

"  The  Church  herself,"  said  Arthur,  "  is  always  wise 
and  right.  But  do  you  mean  to  say  that  all  Irish  mar 
riages,  and  the  Irish  attitude  to  woman,  come  up  to  the 
Church's  ideal,  and  follow  the  Church's  spirit?  The 
Church  says  that  the  essence  of  the  Sacrament  is  in  the 
vow  of  each  to  each  —  their  mental  and  spiritual  attitude. 
The  Church  presupposes  love  and  chivalry.  Where  are 
these  in  the  hundreds  of  cases  where  the  wife  has  scarcely 
seen  her  husband  before  the  marriage,  and  where  she  has 


72  THE:  PiyOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

been  taken  as  part  of  a  bargain  in  which  cattle  and  bank 
notes  count  for  more  than  herself  ?  " 

"  I  'm  not  defending  the  custom,"  said  Maeve  with 
a  smile.  "  Don't  think  that  /  will  be  discussed  as  an 
incidental  item  amongst  cows  and  banknotes " 

"  I  'd  be  awfully  disgusted  to  think  that  you  would," 
said  Arthur  emphatically,  "in  fact  I  wouldn't  stand  it." 

"  I  wasn't  aware  that  you  were  an  interested  party," 
said  Maeve  drily. 

"  Well,  of  course,  I  wasn't  heretofore.  '  Twouldn't 
have  been  right  to  think  of  you  in  that  way.  But  I 
believe  you  were  at  the  back  of  my  mind  when  I  heard 
the  birds  and  rolled  down  the  slopes  in  the  sunshine 
yesterday.  You  were  part  of  the  ecstasy;  there  was 
something  of  your  voice  in  the  bird-notes.  To  be  sure 
I  didn't  admit  it  to  myself.  But  that  dream  of  the 
Garden  of  Eden  has  made  things  wonderfully  vivid  to 
me.  I  'd  give  worlds  to  bring  back  the  feeling,  and  to 
have  you  looking  as  you  looked  when  you  kissed  me. 
You  can't  possibly  realize  how  divine  you  were." 

"  No,  indeed,"  said  Maeve  with  a  dry  smile ;  "  you  see 
I  haven't  been  dreaming  in  the  Garden  of  Eden.  But 
I  am  immensely  tickled  by  your  naivete." 

"  It  wasn't  a  dream  in  the  ordinary  sense,"  declared 
Arthur.  "  There  was  a  wonderful  intensity  of  spiritual 
realization  about  it.  Haven't  you  often  felt  on  awaking 
in  the  morning  an  extraordinary  sense,  for  one  brief 
moment,  that  the  whole  mystery  and  wonder  of  things 
were  revealed?  Just  for  a  flash  the  whole  soul  seems 
to  take  a  peep  at  the  infinite  before  being  pressed  into 
the  bodily  harness  and  slavery  of  time  and  place  again. 


ARTHUR  O'MARA  IN  EDEN  73 

'  Tis  exquisite,  but  'tis  too  brief  to  leave  more  than  a 
tantalizing  sense  of  the  infinite,  barely  but  irrevocably 
missed.  My  Eden  dream  brought  the  same  rapture,  but 
the  memory  is  more  definite.  So  you  mustn't  be  surprised 
if  I  look  upon  you  with  new  eyes." 

"  You  are  wonderfully  boyish/'  said  Maeve  with  a 
judicial  air. 

"And  surely  the  original  Adam  must  have  been  exceed 
ingly  boyish,  and  the  original  Eve  delightfully  girlish. 
Every  boy  in  love  is  again  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  I 
suppose.  And  I  'm  sure  there  must  be  some  way  of 
checkmating  what  we  call  the  serpent.  Do  you  know  that 
the  story  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  is  my  favorite  one  —  I 
tantalized  my  brain  over  the  symbolism  at  Maynooth, 
and  got  pulled  up  for  my  curiosity.  I  must  think  it  all 
out  when  I  'm  camping  at  Howth,  or,  I  should  say,  Ben 
Eadar.  I  wonder  if  you  'd  come  and  see  me  some  after 
noon.  It  would  be  grand  to  take  you  round  the  cliffs. 
You  see  "  —  he  pointed  in  its  direction  —  "  it 's  only  just 
yonder." 

"  I  could  scarcely  swim  across  the  Bay,  even  in  my 
summer  clothes,"  said  Maeve.  "And  don't  you  think, 
Mr.  Modern  Adam,  that  it  is  scarcely  Eve's  place  to  hunt 
you  up." 

"  Oh,  I  didn't  suggest  swimming/'  he  said,  with  a 
laugh.  "  I  knew  'twould  mean  a  tram  drive ;  and  I  'd 
gladly  come  for  you." 

"  The  calm,  cool  way  you  talk  of  idling  your  time  at 
Howth  is  astonishing,"  said  Maeve,  trying  to  be  quite 
severe  again.  "  The  Fianna  did  a  good  deal  of  idling  and 


74  THE    PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

hunting  there,  we  are  told ;  but  they  and  theirs  are  gone, 
and  you  belong  to  the  twentieth  century." 

"  I  'm  not  sure  that  I  do/'  said  Arthur.  "  I  'm  not  at 
all  clear  as  to  what  the  twentieth  century  happens  to  be. 
They  didn't  let  us  know  much  about  it  at  Maynooth — two 
planets  might  crash  together  in  the  heavens  and  we  'd  only 
hear  about  it  in  vacation  time.  And  you  're  wrong  in 
supposing  that  I  'm  cool  and  calm.  You  can't  imagine  the 
moods  and  storms  that  come  to  me  at  times.  But  you  have 
an  indescribable  effect  upon  me.  I  '11  always  come  to  you 
for  poise  and  guidance." 

"  It  will  be  like  this :  '  Now  I  feel  light-headed,  so  I  '11 
go  and  pay  my  respects  to  the  Dalkey  millstone.'  Tis 
well  to  serve  some  really  definite  purpose  in  life." 

Maeve  spoke  the  language  of  sarcasm  with  a  slow 
sweetness. 

At  this  stage  the  little  Irish-speaking  cailin  aimsire 
appeared  at  the  door  of  the  summer-house  and  an 
nounced  that  Father  Martin  Murray  had  called  expect 
ing  to  see  Fergus,  having  missed  him  at  his  office.  He 
would  be  charmed  to  see  Maeve  herself. 

Maeve  opened  her  eyes  widely  and  said  "  Oh !  "  with 
great  and  interested  expression.  She  was  surprised  to 
learn  that  Father  Murray  was  in  Dublin.  She  thought  a 
moment,  made  a  plunge  for  her  Bossuet,  and  said  she 
would  be  in  the  house  directly.  Arthur  said  that  he  would 
slip  out  and  run  up  Killiney  Hill ;  he  could  not  converse 
at  his  ease  with  clerics  just  yet. 

u  You  need  not  be  doubtful  about  meeting  Father  Mur 
ray,"  said  Maeve  with  a  kindly  positiveness.  "  He  's  a 
great  man  in  the  Gaelic  League,  and  a  great  man  in  every 


ARTHUR  O'MARA  IN  £D£N  75 

way,  though  people  generally  don't  realize  his  greatness, 
as  yet  in  Ireland.  And  he  's  gentleness  and  sympathy 
personified." 

Arthur,  however,  declared  that  he  was  only  in  the  mood 
for  birds  and  waves  and  hills  and  Maeve  herself.  But 
he  would  return  to  tea  if  she  promised  to  try  to  look  as 
she  did  in  his  dream. 

As  Maeve  O'Hagan  sailed  gracefully  across  the  garden, 
with  her  Bossuet  beneath  her  arm,  she  wore  a  rapt  and 
sphinx-like  expression,  of  the  kind  which  Fergus  some 
times  said  would  hypnotize  gooseberries. 


CHAPTER  IX 

AN     T-ATHAIR     MAIRTIN,    THE)     MAYNOOTH     CRISIS,    AND 
IN    A 


IATHER  MARTIN  MURRAY  was  not  a 

Canon  or  a  Monsignor,  but  he  held  a  high 
and  shining  place  in  Maeve's  esteem.  He 
had  been  an  intimate  friend  of  herself  and 
Fergus  in  their  London  period,  and  for 
both  of  them  he  typified  the  finest  spirit  of 
the  Church,  mingled  with  a  gracious  and 
lofty  humanity.  He  had  held  a  high  position, 
though  still,  comparatively  speaking,  a  young 
man,  in  an  English  Catholic  College,  but  had 
left  it  because  its  anti-Irish  prejudice  had  jarred 
equally  upon  his  patriotic  and  his  Christian  spirit.  At  this 
later  stage  he  was  stationed  in  a  lowly  place  in  the  West 
minster  diocese;  but  with  his  own  character  and  his 
attainments  in  music,  in  Catholic  philosophy,  and  in  liberal 
culture,  his  position  could  never  be  lowly  to  those  who 
knew  and  understood.  Most  men,  even  interesting  —  nav, 
more,  inspiring  —  men,  are  unequal,  intermittent,  in  their 
appeal  ;  there  are  times  when  the  light  fails,  when  the  fire 
burneth  not,  and  seemeth  quenched.  An  t-Athair  Mairtin, 
like  a  classic  or  a  noble  landscape,  never  lacked  force  and 


THE)     MAYNOOTH     CRISIS  77 

freshness  and  glow,  for  his  inner  life  was  simple  and 
great,  always  spent  in  the  company  of  immortal  things. 

Maeve,  when  she  pleased,  could  be  a  very  gracious  and 
charming  hostess ;  giving  with  the  mere  making  and  serv 
ing  of  tea  the  sense  of  a  sylph  performing  in  a  Greek  play 
of  a  beautiful  and  idyllic,  yet  enlivening  nature.  She  was 
at  her  best  today.  As  she  moved  through  the  room,  and 
in  and  out,  she  kept  up  an  animated  conversation  with 
Father  Martin;  and  his  eager  musical  voice,  as  he  ques 
tioned  and  replied,  sounded,  especially  at  a  little  distance, 
as  if  he  were  reading  some  fine  passage  from  Ruskin. 
His  grave,  kindly  eyes  shone;  his  thoughtful  oval  face 
was  alternately  wistful  and  beaming;  and  his  quick, 
merry,  yet  curiously  uncanny-sounding  laugh  was  an 
arresting  distraction  at  intervals. 

"  My  dear  Miss  O'Hagan,"  he  was  saying,  as  she  filled 
him  a  third  cup  of  tea,  "  you  entirely  under-rate  your  own 
influence  in  life.  It  is  often  said,  and  sometimes  by 
friends  of  our  own,  that  the  priests  are  far  too  powerful 
in  a  worldly  way,  and  that  they  derive  a  great  deal  of 
their  power  from  an  unnatural  ascendancy  over  the  minds 
of  the  women-folk.  I  wonder  if  anyone  has  thought  about 
the  other  side  of  the  story  —  how  much  the  priests,  and 
incidentally  the  Church,  owe  to  women  —  bright,  faithful, 
humanizing  women  like  yourself.  Ye  perennially  freshen 
our  humanity  and  sweeten  our  Christianity  itself." 

"  You  ought  not  to  let  us  know  it  in  that  candid  way," 
said  Maeve,  laughing.  "  It  might  spoil  us.  Still  it  is  good 
to  hear  it.  It  shows  us  ourselves  in  a  new  light.  Only 
this  very  day  I  was  reminded  of  very  extreme  things  that 
the  Fathers  have  said  about  us." 


78  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

"  Don't  worry  over  that ;  there  are  several  ways  of 
explaining  it.  But  on  the  point  of  what  we  latter-day 
clerics,  worried  by  many  formulae  and  worldly  things 
that  have  crept  into  the  Church,  owe  to  women  who  are 
at  once  Christian  and  human  I  could  talk  to  you  for 
an  hour.  After  the  extraordinary  mazes  and  the  strange 
subtleties  of  ecclesiastical  diplomacy;  after  jealousies, 
poor  human  foibles,  intrigues;  after  sternness  and  short 
sightedness  and  golden  opportunities  missed  by  our  superi 
ors,  we  find  your  fresh  sweet  faith,  your  primitive  Chris 
tian  spirit,  and  your  unobtrusive  charity,  a  joy  and  a 
revelation." 

Maeve  was  a  little  surprised  to  hear  a  priest  speak  thus 
of  high  dignitaries  in  the  Church,  and  she  hinted  as  much 
diplomatically. 

"  Oh  my  dear  Miss  O'Hagan,"  he  said  earnestly,  "  you 
must  not  suppose  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  a  despotism, 
and  that  you  dare  not  speak  out  if  you  suffer  at  the  hands 
of  its  dignitaries  and  its  ministers.  Why,  you  might 
quarrel  with  every  bishop  and  priest  in  Ireland  and  yet 
remain  a  loyal  member  of  the  Church.  Be  sure,  of 
course,  that  your  quarrel  is  just,  before  you  do  so,  and 
then  have  no  fear " 

"  I  have  not  the  least  intention  of  so  big  a  quarrel  as 
that,"  said  Maeve  smiling ;  "  even  my  little  brushes  with 
curates  rather  distress  me  in  the  long  run." 

Father  Martin  laughed.  Maeve's  occasional  severity 
with  younger  members  of  the  clergy  was  well  known  to 
him. 

"  My  thought  of  what  we  owe  to  our  gentle-souled 


MAYNOOTH     CRISIS  79 

and  humanizing  Catholic  women  has  been  wonderfully 
borne  in  upon  me  since  I  crossed  your  threshold,"  he  said 
feelingly.  "  I  came  here  today  in  great  distress  of  soul. 
Indeed,  my  mission  to  Ireland,,  personal  and  not  personal, 
has  many  distressing  accompaniments ;  and  too  many 
things  in  the  country  distress  me  intensely.  Yet  your 
homely,  human  kindliness  has  taken  for  the  present  a 
great  deal  of  the  cloud  away." 

Maeve's  eyes  moistened.  The  pathos  of  Father  Mar 
tin's  position,  with  his  great  gifts  and  noble  ideals,  in  a 
narrow  sphere  and  an  alien  and  unsympathetic  environ 
ment,  had  been  the  theme  of  many  a  chat  between  herself 
and  Fergus. 

"  I  won't  speak  of  my  personal  longings  now,"  said 
Father  Martin,  "  though  often  when  I  think  of  what  I 
want  to  do,  and  what  with  God's  help  I  might  do,  in 
my  native  land,  tears  start  in  my  eyes  for  the  delay  and 
comparative  failure  of  my  days.  However,  there  is  hope 
that  better  times  are  at  hand ;  I  expect  good  news  shortly. 
But  that  is  a  simple  matter  compared  with  the  ecclesiasti 
cal  and  national  questions  on  which  I  have  felt  it  my  duty 
to  come  over,  though  they  are  so  delicate  and  ominous 
that  the  value  of  my  humble  help  is  doubtful.  Tell  me," 
—  he  instinctively  lowered  his  voice,  though  there  was  no 
possibility  of  anyone  but  themselves  hearing  a  syllable  of 
what  he  said  —  "  has  Fergus  hinted  anything  to  you  of 
the  efforts  to  get  the  Gaelic  League  condemned  at  Rome, 
or  to  have  the  clergy  ordered  to  withdraw  from  it,  and  of 
the  gathering  crisis  at  Maynooth  ?  " 

Maeve  was  so  astonished  that  she  started. 


8o  THE:  pivOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

"  We  don't  talk  much  about  Maynooth  lately/'  she  said 
after  a  pause.  "  We  differ  too  much  about  it,  as  I  fear 
we  are  coming  to  differ  over  other  things,  so  we  tacitly 
avoid  it  except  in  a  general  way.  I  believe  that  there  are 
wild  spirits  in  Maynooth;  that  Gaelic  League  ideas,  and 
what  are  coming  to  be  called  Sinn  Fein  ideas,  have  intoxi 
cated  them,  and  that  they  get  too  much  of  a  show  in  the 
paper.  It  is  widely  understood  that  certain  of  the  articles 
are  by  Maynooth  men ;  so  they  will  have  a  serious  effect 
upon  the  people.  It  is  also  known  that  the  Maynooth 
authorities  have  issued  an  order  that  nobody  in  the  college 
is  to  write  for  the  paper,  and  that  the  order  has  been  dis- 
l  regarded.  Isn't  it  terrible  to  think  of  clergymen  them 
selves  disobeying  and  weakening  ecclesiastical  authority  ?  " 
"  Where  the  ecclesiastical  authority  is  just  and  legiti 
mate,  yes.  But  ecclesiastical  authority  has  been  sadly 
overstrained  in  Ireland,  especially  in  matters  pertaining 
to  the  British  connexion.  The  bishops  and  Rome  hold 
Ireland  for  England.  Don't  protest.  The  Church,  as  the 
guardian,  teacher,  and  disseminator  of  Christ's  Gospel, 
is  one  thing,  about  which  there  is  no  question  amongst 
any  of  us,  though  we  may  have  our  own  opinions  — 
as  I  certainly  have  —  about  the  quality  and  character  of 
the  teaching  in  Ireland.  But  the  Church  in  modern  times 
has  a  subtle  and  complicated  diplomatic  side  and  machin 
ery,  as  it  has  to  enter  into  relations  and  negotiations, 
direct  and  indirect,  with  powers  and  governments  round 
the  world.  That  diplomatic  side  of  the  Church  is  very 
human  and  fallible.  Ireland,  if  she  understood  it,  would 
have  grave  reason  to  complain  of  it,  for  it  is  in  no  sense 
fair  to  Ireland.  To  conciliate  a  great  world-power  like 


MAYNOOTH     CRISIS  8l 

England  it  will  sacrifice  our  faithful  little  Ireland  at  any 
time." 

"  What  a  shame !  "  said  Maeve  hotly.  Then  she  blushed 
and  laughed.  Father  Martin  himself  smiled  at  her  sudden 
lapse  from  ultramontanism. 

"  It  is,  however,  partly  Ireland's  fault,"  continued 
Father  Martin.  "  She  is  unrepresented,  or  feebly,  im 
perfectly,  wrongly  represented  at  Rome.  It  is  time  that 
we  should  change  this  stupid  order  of  things,  and  take 
steps  to  have  our  national  case  represented  fairly  and  ably 
at  the  Vatican.  With  the  true  facts  before  it,  even 
Vatican  politicians  —  who  are  not  the  Catholic  Church, 
remember  —  cannot  sacrifice  our  historic  Catholic  nation 
to  please  a  Protestant  Empire." 

"  Diplomacy  is  a  remote  and  subtle  thing,"  said  Maeve 
smilingly,  "  and  takes  some  thinking  over.  But  the  Gaelic 
League  is  a  bright  and  immediate  home  fact.  The  idea 
of  condemning  it  seems  a  monstrous  one." 

11  It  is  offensive  to  certain  English  politicians,  as  they 
know  the  national  strength  and  sanity  it  will  lead  to.  To 
none  is  it  more  offensive  and  disagreeable  than  to  certain 
powerful  English  Catholics,,  lay  and  clerical.  Your  own 
bishops  are  coming  to  dread  it  because  it  is  sowing  and 
spreading  thought  and  bringing  Catholics  and  Protestants 
into  harmony  for  national  ends.  At  present  the  wires  are 
being  sedulously  pulled,  and  some  in  high  places  are  con 
fident  that  the  condemnation  will  come.  Happily,  how 
ever,  the  question  is  very  complicated,  and  the  fear  is 
arising  in  certain  quarters  that  the  condemnation  might 
have  very  dangerous  consequences  —  but  not  for  the 
Gaelic  League." 


82  TH£   PLOUGH    AND   THE)    CROSS 

"  I  'm  afraid/'  said  Maeve  sadly,  "  that  a  condemnation 
from  Rome,  or  the  withdrawal  of  the  clergy  from  it, 
would  simply  annihilate  it  in  the  country  places." 

"  On  the  other  hand,"  said  Father  Martin,  "  some  of 
us  are  very  clear  as  to  our  duty  in  case  the  condemnation 
comes.  Whatever  be  the  consequences  we  shall  point  out 
clearly  to  the  people  that  this  condemnation  is  a  political 
move,  and  in  no  sense  the  voice  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
Respectfully,  but  with  absolute  firmness,  we  shall  repudi 
ate  and  resist  it.  I  am  to  meet  several  of  the  priests  who 
have  been  prominent  in  the  movement,  and  I  trust  I  shall 
find  them  equally  clear  as  to  their  duty." 

"  But  how  will  the  bishops  stand  ? "  asked  Maeve. 
"  They  have  at  least  in  a  mild  way  expressed  their  ap 
proval  of  the  League " 

"  Some  of  them-,  at  all  events,"  answered  Father  Martin, 
"  though  they  have  not  thrown  themselves  into  the  move 
ment  in  the  way  they  would  have  done  were  they  far- 
seeing  and  national.  All  the  same  a  condemnation  of  the 
League  would  be  to  some  extent  a  condemnation  of  them 
selves.  What  they  fear  most,  however,  is  the  danger  of 
direct  resistance,  lay  and  clerical.  It  would  all  give  what 
you  call  the  '  wild  spirits  '  of  Maynooth  a  tremendous 
chance,  and  there  's  no  knowing  where  it  would  end.  My 
own  opinion  is  that  the  bishops  will  not  risk  it.  They  '11 
probably  think  it  best  to  press  Rome  to  withhold  its 
condemnation,  and  leave  them  to  deal  with  the  Maynooth 
crisis  themselves." 

"  Oh !  "  said  Maeve.  "  Is  there  a  Maynooth  crisis  apart 
from  the  question  of  the  condemnation  of  the  Gaelic 
League  by  Rome  ?  " 


THE)     MAYNOOTH     CRISIS  83 

"  The  bishops  are  sure  there  is,  at  all  events.  It  all 
depends  upon  developments,  and  how  they  are  dealt  with. 
Some  of  the  trouble  means  simply  that  an  honest  national 
spirit,  which  we  should  all  be  proud  and  glad  of,  is 
animating  certain  young  men  and  professors.  More  of 
it  is  owing  to  the  expression  of  the  growing  idea  that  the 
Church  in  Ireland  is  not  doing  its  duty  to  the  nation,  and 
treats  genuinely  enlightened  modern  ideas  as  heresy. 
Then  the  bishops  are  uneasy  over  the  spreading  of  what 
is  called  liberal  Catholicism  in  Maynooth  —  as  if  real 
Catholicism  were  not  always  liberal.  What  really  disturbs 
.them  is  the  apparently  growing  sympathy,  in  a  certain 
quarter  of  the  college,  with  Immanentism,  which,  by  the 
way,  one  of  Fergus's  contributors  explained  very  lucidly 
and  attractively  in  Irish." 

"  I  did  not  like  it  at  all,"  declared  Maeve.  "  Its  logical 
outcome  would  be  to  reduce  all  authority  and  all  tradition 
to  a  shadow." 

"  It  might  be  maintained  that  it  has  been  always  in  the 
Church,"  replied  Father  Murray.  "  It  is  rather  the  wild 
deductions  from  it  that  are  unphilosophic  and  dangerous. 
But  very  much  simpler  things  and  simpler  thought  are  in 
a  sense  rather  dangerous  in  Ireland  today,  just  as  a  little 
good  wine  is  dangerous  to  a  starved  man.  The  people 
generally  are  left  very  ignorant,  and  quite  unacquainted 
with  the  philosophic  basis  of  Catholicism.  I  am  appalled 
at  the  way  the  Church  in  Ireland  is  leaving  them,  and  at 
the  tepid,  timid,  unintellectual  life  she  is  satisfied  with 
herself.  I  do  not  wonder  at  the  uprising  in  young  May 
nooth,  though  I  am  pained  and  distressed  at  the  thought 
of  the  possible  consequences  of  haste  and  rashness.  I 


84  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

hope  my  humble  influence  with  the  leaders  may  prove  to 
be  of  some  avail.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  bishops,  as 
is  threatened,  try  suppressions  or  expulsions,  no  man  can 
tell  the  end." 

"  Fergus  must  have  known  of  all  this,"  said  Maeve 
dejectedly,  "  and  yet  he  has  not  thought  me  worthy  of 
the  least  little  confidence  in  the  matter.  Of  course  I  've 
been  a  bit  stern  and  critical  about  the  paper,  and  all  that, 
but  he  might  have  taken  my  sympathy  for  granted." 

Father  Martin  smiled,  but  a  little  sadly. 

"  You  have  a  golden  heart  and  character,  Miss 
O'Hagan,"  he  said,  "  but  are  you  sure  that  you  are  always, 
sufficiently  open-minded  and  open-hearted  yourself?  Like 
many  who  live  much  in  the  inner  world  the  confidence  of 
Fergus  is  not  easily  obtained,  but  where  really  attracted 
and  appreciated  it  is  intimate  and  unrestrained.  The  sym 
pathy  of  a  mind  like  yours  would  be  infinitely  precious  to 
one  like  him ;  but  beware  of  half  and  critically-measured 
sympathy.  Fergus  will  need  all  he  can  get  in  the  days 
that  are  before  us.  If  our  friends  in  Maynooth  are  at 
tacked  we  may  be  sure  that  he  and  his  work  are  not  going 
to  escape.  Our  bishops,  alas,  have  yet  to  learn  the  real 
wants  of  today,  and  the  real  friends  of  the  Church  and 
Ireland." 

Maeve  was  grave  and  silent  for  a  while.  When  she 
spoke  again  there  was  a  curious  hesitancy  about  her 
words,  as  if  she  were  speaking  half  against  her  will.  - 

"All  this  talk  about  the  clash  of  ideas  in  Church  and 
nation  is  very  painful  to  me,"  she  said.  "  It  seems  to  me 
like  violence  in  a  sacred  place.  I  want  to  be  far  away 
from  it  all.  I  don't  quite  know  yet  where  I  really  want 


THIS    MAYNOOTH     CRISIS  85 

to  be,  but  it  is  somewhere  very  different  from  the  Ireland 
I  see  and  know.  I  can't  explain  myself  to  Fergus,  nor 
indeed  even  to  myself,  for  of  late  I  seem  often  to  be 
carried  altogether  out  of  myself.  I  pass  into  a  world,  or 
rather  a  state,  that  is  utterly  unlike  my  ordinary,  actual 
one.  I  am  not  speaking  of  anything  that  could  at  all  be 
described  as  mere  imagination.  The  vividness  and  defin- 
iteness  put  that  explanation  out  of  the  question." 

"  It  is  a  poor  and  preposterous  philosophy  that  attempts 
to  dogmatize  on  the  limits  of  the  experience  of  a  soul,  and 
say  it  is  this  and  that  and  no  more,"  said  Father  Murray 
eagerly  and  kindly.  "  The  comparatively  little  use  that 
whole  multitudes  of  men  and  women  make  of  their  souls 
in  the  human  interlude  is  a  most  astounding  and  awesome 
thought  to  me  at  times.  But,  I  would  like  to  ask,  is  what 
you  tell  me  a  new  experience  in  your  life?  " 

"  No,"  said  Maeve.  "  It  began  some  years  ago  in  times 
of  physical  pain.  After  my  recovery  for  a  year  or  two, 
it  was  intermittent.  Then  for  a  time  it  seemed  to  have 
departed;  I  was  altogether  what  I  may  call  my  normal 
self.  Since  our  return  to  Ireland,  and  especially  since 
days  of  crisis  seemed  imminent,  it  has  come  anew  and  in 
a  more  wonderful  way.  Often  it  is  an  almost  unbearable 
ecstasy ;  a  few  times  when  alone,  and  at  prayer,  I  have 
fainted  quite  away.  I  am  supposed  to  be  a  somewhat 
critical  and  positive  person  in  daily  life,  and  I  have  been 
severe  with  myself  over  all  —  all  —  I  hardly  know  how  to 
speak  of  it,  vividly  and  wonderfully  though  I  realize  it; 
and  I  have  asked  myself  who  am  I  that  I  should  come  into 
intimate  relation  with  things  behind  the  veil  of  sense.  I 
cannot  answer;  I  can  only  relate.  The  visions  and  the 


86  THK   PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

messages  continue.  I  am  almost  afraid  to  tell  you  more, 
for  fear  you  would  think  that  it  is  all  a  matter  of  dis 
ordered  imagination  or  awful  presumption.  I  can  say, 
however,  that  there  is  a  solemn  task,  an  ordeal  it  may  be, 
before  me,  and  —  I  believe  —  in  Ireland.  What  it  is  I 
know  not  yet." 

Father  Murray,  in  the  gentle  and  gracious  way  that 
made  him  beloved  by  those  with  whom  he  was  entirely 
confidential,  asked  a  number  of  questions  with  serene 
sympathy  and  delicacy.  Maeve  had  long  since  known  how 
far  from  normal  and  trodden  fields  his  mental  life  was 
passed,  but  she  never  realized  till  now  the  essentially 
mystical  side  of  his  character  as  well  as  his  knowledge. 
At  one  stage  he  told  her  with  a  grace  and  glow  of  his  own, 
of  things  recorded  in  the  annals  of  Raimondo  of  Capua, 
the  friend  and  confessor  of  St.  Catherine  of  Siena.  They 
came  home  to  her  with  enkindling  interest  and  surprise, 
for  some  of  her  own  experiences  in  her  hours  of  ecstasy 
recalled  early  visions  of  "  The  Mantellata,"  whose  won 
drous  inner  life,  in  her  tragic  Southern  Tuscany  of  the  far 
fourteenth  century,  was  being  retold  with  such  sympathy 
of  spirit  and  music  of  voice  above  the  blue  of  the  Dublin 
Bay  of  the  twentieth.  "  But,"  thought  Maeve,  "  she  was 
chosen  for  sublime  work  in  a  terrible  time,  and  who  am  I, 
and  what  is  there  before  me  ?  " 

But  long  before  the  rare  exchange  of  confidence  was 
ended,  and  Father  Murray  was  obliged  to  leave,  there 
was  sunshine  in  Maeve's  mind. 

When  left  alone,  she  sat  for  some  time  by  the  open 
window,  looking  down  towards  the  Bay  which  she  did 
not  see.  Now  that  Father  Martin  was  gone  the  news 


THIS     MAYNOOTH     CRISIS  87 

he  had  brought  bore  upon  her  with  poignant  force.  If 
only  she  and  Fergus  could  see  eye  to  eye  on  most  things 
the  path  of  life  would  be  easier,  but  Ireland  with  her 
tormenting  problems  was  breaking  their  intellectual  and 
spiritual  kinship,  and,  unkindest  irony  of  all,  advanced 
Maynooth,  she  felt,  was  largely  responsible.  Even  yet 
he  would  talk  to  her,  with  profound  sympathy  and  under 
standing,  on  her  favorite  women-saints.  She  remembered 
how  only  that  very  morning  he  told  her  before  leaving 
that  she  would  find  on  his  study  table  an  arresting  little 
book  by  a  religious  scientist,  containing  incidentally  a 
glowing  appreciation  of  St.  Teresa  and  her  mysticism. 
He  had  brought  it  home  to  translate  into  Irish  in  quiet 
hours  certain  pages  which  would  give  the  readers  of 
Fainne  an  Lae  a  new  sense  of  wonder,  and  show  them  that 
magic  and  reverence  accompanied  the  .  true  scientific 
spirit,  whatever  might  be  said  of  half-science  —  "  when 
half-gods  go  the  gods  arrive." 

Maeve  sought  the  little  book  and  read  the  transcen 
dental  view  of  St.  Teresa  with  delight  and  astonishment. 
Then  she  turned  to  pages  that  were  marked  for  transla 
tion-  and  comment,  and  perused  them  with  bewilderment, 
fascination,  and  questioning. 

"  The  ether  of  science,  on  whose  re-discovery  she  is 
now  pluming  herself,  is,  perhaps,  only  akin  to  that  vital 
primordial  force  or  vehicle  of  force  —  undifferentiated 
cosmic  matter,  which  in  its  evolution  gives  birth  to  the 
radio-active  spark  of  life  —  and  which  never  will  be  re 
discovered  until  she  changes  her  present  methods.  For 
this  force  or  matter  is  of  the  Substance  and  Essence  of 
the  Divine  Metaphysical  Sun,  of  which  our  visible  sun 


88  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

is  but  the  symbol.  This  all-powerful,  universal,  tremend 
ous  force,  or  origin  of  force  and  matter  both,  is  the  Life 
Principle  of  sun  and  star  and  planet,  of  man  and  beast 
—  yea,  of  all  creation.  It  fills  interstellar  space;  the 
stone,  the  flower,  man,  are  alike  saturated  and  permeated 
by  it.  It  lurks  in  the  dust  in  the  street,  for  no  atom  of 
matter  in  the  whole  wide  creation  is  devoid  of  life,  of 
spiritual  entity.  It  is  the  energy,  the  power  which  creeps 
out  in,  and  shapes  the  fronds  of,  the  humblest  moss 
gleaming  on  the  damp  walls  of  some  mountain  cavern. 
It  builds  up  every  life-cell.  It  is  the  invisible  and  potent 
architect,  which  gives  it  those  unparalleled  shapes  of 
geometrical  perfection  and  loveliness,  revealed  to  us  by 
the  microscope.  .  .  . 

"  It  was  in  one  form  of  this  force,  this  Universal  Sol 
vent,  as  Paracelsus  calls  it,  which  pervades  and  saturates 
everything  —  the  Astral  Light  —  this  Book,  as  she  calls 
it  —  that  Sta.  Teresa  read  Divine  Truths,  and  was  enabled 
at  times  to  soar  above  Humanity,  to  dive  deep  into  the 
past  and  the  future,  and  to  become  practically  omnipotent 
and  omniscient.  It  was  this  same  Book,  the  leaves  of 
which  lie  always  open,  which  revealed  the  most  intimate 
secrets  of  Nature  to  those  High  Priests  and  philosophers 
of  antiquity  who,  attaining  to  a  lofty  state  of  spiritualiza- 
tion,  were  able  to  read  therein  that  knowledge  which 
eludes  and  baffles  the  modern  scientist.  In  the  astral  light 
is  registered  every  scene,  every  word,  every  deed  that  has 
ever  existed,  been  said,  done  or  thought  in  this  vast  uni 
verse.  .  .  . 

"  For  the  Wisdom  philosophers  maintained,  and  main 
tain,  that  it  is  possible  to  communicate  with  the  World 


THE     MAYNOOTH     CRISIS  89 

Soul  —  the  Archeus  —  by  a  faculty  which,  in  the  earliest 
ages  of  the  race,  was  more  developed  than  it  is  now  — 
and  which,  although  for  the  most  part  dormant  or  latent 
—  is  still  the  inalienable  possession  of  the  human  mind. 

"  This  faculty  enables  him  who  has  received  the  key 
to  retrace,  as  it  were,  in  a  mirror,  the  creative  processes 
of  the  Cosmos.  It  is  maintained  that  the  monad  linked 
with,  and  reflecting  the  parent  monad,  preserves  intact 
the  photographs  of  these  creative,  still  operative,  pro 
cesses,  and  under  certain  physiological  conditions  can  be 
made  to  yield  them  up.  Man  being  thus  placed  in  touch 
with  immediate,  absolute  and  concrete  knowledge,  the 
reign  of  error  and  hypothesis  is  at  an  end,  and  he  be 
comes,  what  he  was  meant  to  be,  the  Dominator  and  Ruler 
of  Nature's  most  occult  and  hidden  forces.  It  was  this 
science,  this  knowledge  of  many  of  the  properties  and 
powers  of  Akasa,  i.e.,  ether  (for  who  of  finite  intellect 
can  say  all  ?  )  which  enabled  the  sages  of  antiquity  to 
allay  storms,  produce  thunder  and  lightning,  arrest  rain, 
and  all  the  other  marvels  ascribed  to  them.  Do  not  mis 
apprehend  me.  It  is  no  blind  force  I  speak  of,  but  an  all- 
powerful  and  tremendous  force,  directed  by  Will  and 
Intelligence,  an  objective  emanation  of  Divinity  —  a 
medium  whereby  the  Divine  Thought  is  transmitted  to 
and  suffuses  matter  —  a  medium  which  is  the  repository 
of  the  spiritual  images  of  all  human  thoughts  and  forms. 

"  The  properties  in  as  far  as  known  to  scientists,  of  the 
etheric  medium,  the  cathode,  Roentgen,  Becquerel,  and 
N  rays,  the  radio-active  spark,  are  all  significant  signs 
that  science  must  either  abandon  her  old  position  in  re 
gard  to  forces  outside  the  physical  plane  —  perfectly  nat- 


9O  THIS    PLOUGH    AND    THJ$    CROSS 

ural  forces  by  the  way — or  hover,  baffled  and  impotent, 
on  the  confines  of  the  Visible  and  the  Invisible.  She  has 
come  to  a  point  when  she  must  ally  herself  boldly  with 
Transcendental  Metaphysics  or  fail ;  when  she  must 
humbly,  and  with  bowed  head,  confess  that  her  feeble 
crawlings  are  girt  in  on  every  side  by  vast  spiritual  realms 
of  abysmal  immensity,  when  she  must  either  turn  the 
lock  with  that  same  key  which  opened  the  portal  of  the 
universal  secret  to  the  sages,  saints  and  alchemists  of  the 
past,  or  give  up  the  attempt  for  ever. 

"  It  shows  us  that  there  is  no  conflict  between  matter 
and  spirit  —  that  they  cannot  be  divorced.  Both  are  alike 
Divine.  The  Divine  compenetrating  matter — matter  corn- 
penetrating  the  Divine.  It  establishes  the  solidarity  of 
Spirit.  It  proves  beyond  all  possible  disproof  that  we  are 
all  Members  of  a  Human  and  a  Divine  Brotherhood, 
and  woe  be  to  him  who  fails  to  realize  the  transcendent 
relationship  in  this,  his  ephemeral  and  temporary  life." 

Maeve  sighed.  All  this  might  be  true  or  untrue, 
science  or  a  dream;  but  it  said  nothing  of  the  voice  or 
authority  of  the  Church. 


CHAPTER  X 

LORD    STRATHBARRA    OFFENDS    AND    IS    FORGIVEN 

gN  point  of  actuality  the  Boyne  Valley  is 
not  far  from  Dublin ;  practically  it  is  as 
distant  as  the  Middle  Ages.  To  the  Dub- 
liner  it  is  a  mere  name,  conveying  a  vague 
sense  of  beauty  and  remoteness.  Few  men 
in  all  Ireland  have  thought  in  modern  times 
of  exploring  it.  Cattle-dealers  and  com 
mercial  travelers  fare  sometimes  to  the 
towns  and  villages  in  its  vicinity,  but  the 
Valley  itself  remains  as  much  apart  from 
their  lives  and  destiny  as  fairyland.  Even 
to  those  towns  and  villages  in  its  vicinity  the  trains  from 
Dublin  are  few,  and  they  look  like  contrivances  that  the 
railway  companies  do  not  very  well  know  what  to  do  with. 
They  are  sent  forth  in  the  morning  and  evening,  never 
in  the  full  light  of  day;  with  just  one  exception,  and  this 
is  not  a  direct  or  Midland  conveyance,  but  first  goes  north 
by  the  sea  as  far  as  Drogheda,  and  then  turns  and  makes 
the  best  of  the  devious  and  lonely  way  to  Oldcastle  (there 
is  a  corresponding  one  from  Meath  at  noon).  This  was 
the  train  which  Fergus  and  Elsie  arranged  to  catch  after 


92  THIS  PLOUGH   AND  THE;   CROSS 

lunch.  So  shortly  before  three  o'clock  they  found  them 
selves  at  Amiens  Street. 

They  were  surprised  to  find  Lord  Strathbarra  at  the 
station.  He  explained  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  Kells, 
as,  amongst  other  things,  one  of  his  schemes  was  a 
special  study  of  Saint  Columcille  —  particularly  his  vis 
ionary  and  mystical  appeal  —  for  a  Continental  liberal 
Catholic  magazine ;  and  he  found  that  a  first-hand  in 
vestigation  of  the  saints'  homes  and  haunts  helped  his 
work  appreciably.  There  was  a  great  deal  in  the  Genius 
Loci.  He  was  delighted  to  find  that  he  would  have  the 
company  of  Elsie  and  Fergus  as  far  as  Baile  na  Boinne, 
on  the  verge  of  the  Boyne  Valley. 

At  heart  Fergus  was  not  quite  so  pleased,  though  he 
was  keenly  interested  in  Lord  Strathbarra.  He  did  not 
at  first  admit  to  himself  that  he  was  not  pleased,  still 
less  would  he  admit  that  his  undefined  displeasure  had 
anything  to  do  with  Lord  Strathbarra's  very  obvious  in 
terest  in  Elsie.  As  the  train  ambled  along  by  the  sunlit 
Fingal  sea,  and  Lord  Strathbarra,  seated  by  Elsie's  side, 
grew  more  and  more  animated  and  interested,  he  cherished 
a  feeling  more  pronounced,  though  he  asked  and  answered 
questions  with  apparent  ease  and  lightness  of  heart.  When 
the  train  turned  at  Drogheda  into  a  lonely  and  cloistral 
land  he  lapsed  into  a  pensive  listlessness,  though  his  im 
agination  was  vividly  if  poignantly  at  work.  Lord  Strath 
barra  now  monopolized  the  talk,  and  his  eager  tones, 
a-blent  with  the  rumbling  of  the  train  in  the  silent  land, 
brought  a'  strange  mental  lull.  Fergus  caught  as  in  a  dream 
words  and  phrases  like  "  Eusebius,"  "  Tertullian,"  "  Sy 
noptic,"  "  Fourth  Gospel,"  "  Pauline,"  "Athanasius," 


LORD    STRATHBARRA  93 

"  Forged  Decretals,"  "  vSee  of  Constantinople,"  "  Deposit 
of  the  Faith,"  "  Development  of  Doctrine,"  "  Council  of 
Constance,"  "  Lammenais,"  "  Lacordaire,"  "  L'Avenir," 
"  Vaticanism,"  and  anon  "  second  sight,"  "  lona,"  "  The 
Light  that  enlighteneth  every  man,"  "  The  Immanentist 
position."  Elsie's  eyes  sparkled  curiously,  Lord  Strath- 
barra's  glowed. 

Fergus  was  conscious  that  a  deep  though  unphilo- 
sophic  objection  to  Immanentism  was  arising  in  his  mind. 
The  Immanentism  of  Lord  Strathbarra  in  his  lonely 
Hebridean  isle,  where  he  planned  a  mighty  stand  against 
'Rome,  was  bold  and  picturesque;  the  Immanentism  of 
Elsie,  such  as  it  was,  made  her  more  interesting  and 
piquant,  but  an  Immanentism  which  brought  the  hearts 
of  the  laird  and  the  lady  into  romantic  accord  and  tune 
deserved  to  be  cursed  with  bell,  book  and  candle.  Fergus 
admitted  that  his  reasoning  was  ridiculous,  but  these  did 
not  serve  to  bring  him  into  better  humor  with  himself. 
Why,  after  all,  should  not  Lord  Strathbarra  sail  down 
from  his  wild  Hebridean  shore  and  capture  Elsie  if  he 
could?  So  asked  some  ironic  imp  in  Fergus's  ear,  and 
though  he  was  much  offended  he  was  not  ready  with  an 
answer.  He  had  come  to  assume  that  Elsie's  destiny  was 
a  matter  on  which  he  alone  had  any  right  even  to  express 
an  opinion.  His  attitude  to  her,  so  far  as  it  could  be 
denned  at  all,  was  compact  of  brotherliness,  playfulness 
and  idealism.  That  peer  or  peasant  should  presume  to 
interfere  with  the  subtle  and  delicate  harmony  of  their 
relations  was  as  great  a  piece  of  presumption  as  that  either 
should  dictate  his  leading  articles  or  take  out  and  pass 
remarks  on  his  private  correspondence. 


94  THE    PLOUGH    AND   TH£    CROSS 

However,  he  forgave  Lord  Strathbarra  as  a  good  man 
who  had  unwittingly  made  a  very  foolish  mistake  and 
he 'said,  Slan  leaf  —  go  n-eirghidh  an  bothar  leat  at  Baile 
na  Boinne  station  in  quite  a  forgiving  spirit.  He  felt 
hurt  all  the  same.  When,  as  they  passed  to  the  station 
door  Elsie  put  her  hand  gently  on  his  shoulder,  looked  up 
laughingly  into  his  eyes,  and  said  with  the  airiest  com 
passion,  "  Poor  old  thing !  Is  it  so  very,  very  tired  of  the 
Immanentist  position  philosophically  and  historically  con 
sidered  ? "  he  felt  that  all  which  had  happened  from 
Amiens  Street  down  had  been  gently  blown  from  the 
Book  of  Life  by  an  angel's  breath,  and  he  wished  Lord' 
Strathbara  quite  a  flood  of  light  and  lore  on  the  soul 
and  sixth  sense  of  Columcille  when  he  got  to  the  piece 
of  desolation  called  Kells. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE;  PHILOSOPHY  OF  A  FAIRY  SKY-LARK 

•ERGUS  had  told  Elsie  that  Baile  na  Boinne 
was  a  series  of  sleepy  and  straggling  slums 
on  the  borders  of  wonderland.  It  was  con 
soling  to  her  spirit  to  be  assured  of  the 
proximity  of  wonderland,  for  though  it 
was  not  absolutely  all  slums,  Baile  na 
Boinne  itself  was  depressing,  even  on  a 
glorious  early  summer  afternoon.  It  looked  a 
place  that  had  ceased  to  grow  or  work  or  think 
or  trouble  about  anything,  even  washing.  It 
conveyed  the  sense  of  being  the  sort  of  town  that 
a  progresssive  people  would  clear  away  as  rubbish,  to 
build  a  new  one  on  the  site,  the  old  one  being  really 
incapable,  by  any  sort  of  mending,  of  meeting  modern 
human  requirements.  Being  Wednesday  the  town  suf 
fered  a  market,  or  rather  a  sort  of  fair,  and  this  served 
to  intensify  the  sense  of  wreck  and  decay.  The  marketers 
had  the  air  of  being  too  listless  to  go  home  —  over  the 
lonely  roads  amid  the  grasslands.  There  were  several  of 
them  sjill  in  all  the  straggling  streets,  mainly  in  half- 
petrified  groups  outside  the  shabby-looking  shops  devoted 
to  groceries  and  drink.  They  seemed  plodders  with  no 


98  THE  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

curiosities  and  no  interests.  The  soil  and  Nature  meant 
nothing  to  them.  They  were  nearly  all  non-producers; 
concerned  mostly  with  cattle,  which  they  did  not  fatten, 
leaving  that  more  profitable  business  to  the  English  and 
Scotch,  who  bought  the  unfinished  beasts.  Where  Baile 
na  Boinne  did  not  suggest  inertia  it  suggested  meanness 
or  sordidness. 

"O  Man  of  the  Golden  Mists,"  said  Elsie,  as  they 
turned  down  the  road  that  led  from  the  town  over  the 
Boyne,  "  do  you  really  expect  to  build  a  nation  out  of 
such  stuff  as  Baile  na  Boinne  is  made  of?  It  sets  one 
thinking  of  a  human  scrap-heap." 

"  Paris  has  given  you  picturesque  .notions,"  he  said. 
"After  all,  God  is  good,  and  we  've  only  seen  the  outside 
of  Baile  na  Boinne's  people  anyway.  Under  their  clumsy 
garb,  and  inert,  shrivelled  faces,  there  is  the  eternal  ro 
mance  and  mystery  of  individuality.  Where  there  is 
human  personality  there  is  possible  magic,  possible 
miracle." 

"  Baile  na  Boinne  looks  to  me  the  Great  Blight  in  the 
form  of  a  town,"  she  said. 

"At  the  worst/'  he  replied,  "  It  is  good  to  be  a  while  in 
Baile  na  Boinne.  It  leaves  one  under  no  illusions  as  to 
the  mighty  labor  to  be  effected  before  Ireland  is  in  the 
way  to  breathe  and  grow.  But  by  way  of  compensation 
I  '11  take  you  into  fairyland  in  a  few  minutes." 

They  stopped  for  a  little  while  on  the  Boyne  Bridge. 
The  river  at  this  stage,  before  sweeping  round  into  the 
Valley,  expanded  like  a  lake  below  them.  In  the  midst 
of  it  was  a  tiny  islet  in  which  tall  trees  rose.  It  was  a 


A  FAIRY  SKY-LARK'S  PHILOSOPHY  99 

lovely  little  picture  the  expanse  of  water  and  the  greenery 
made ;  Elsie  thought  that  somehow  she  had  been  suddenly 
transported  into  a  world  a  thousand  miles  from  the  mean 
market  town  they  had  just  left. 

"  This  spot  is  always  a  little  paradise  to  the  imagina 
tion,"  said  Fergus.  "  You  know  that  all  this  is  really 
storied  ground.  Hereabouts  were  favorite  haunts  of  the 
old  gods  of  the  Gael,  whom  your  friend  D'Arbois  de 
Jubainville  re-discovered  for  Europe  a  few  years  ago. 
Angus  Og,  the  god  of  love,  had  one  of  his  wonder-palaces 
not  far  from  where  we  now  stand.  His  magical  birds 
used  to  sing  above  lovers. 

Beautiful   is   the  beginning  of   love  — 
A   youth   and   a   maid,   and   the   birds 
Of  Angus  above  them, 

as  the  old  bard  sang.  What  a  grand  incentive  and  beauti 
ful  accompaniment  to  life  had  those  ancestors  of  ours, 
to  whom  such  ideas  were  realities." 

"  You  would  have  done  record  things  in  the  golden  halo 
industry  if  you  had  lived  in  their  day,"  said  Elsie.  "  Per 
haps  you  did.  There  may  be  something  in  reincarnation. 
You  may  even  be  Angus  Og  without  knowing  it,  and 
your  affection  for  Meath  may  have  a  deeper  explanation 
than  you  think.  And  the  crows  —  why,  they  may  be  your 
old-time  birds  of  love  in  disguise." 

"If  you  mean  that  I  am  as  like  Angus  as  the  crows  of 
Meath  are  like  his  birds,  I  thank  you  sincerely  for  the 
graceful  compliment,"  said  Fergus.  "  There  are  occa 
sions,  however,  on  which  I  would  not  change  places  even 
with  Angus  Og." 


IOO  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE}    CROSS 

"If  you  happen  to  be  Angus  in  a  new  form  your 
behavior  on  the  train  journey  was  not  up  to  your  old 
heroic  standard,"  said  Elsie  slyly. 

"  Nobody  dared  in  the  old  days  to  come  and  try  to 
delude  the  innocent  and  trusting  mind  of  a  beautiful 
ward  of  Angus  by  relating  nineteen  hundred  years' 
history  of  '  the  Light  that  enlighteneth  every  man/  " 
retorted  Fergus,  with  a  laugh. 

"A  '  ward/  indeed,  Fergus  O'Hagan !  Neither  Angus 
nor  any  other  god  in  Gaeldom  had  the  infinite  pretension 
of  some  modern  self-elected  leaders  of  the  people,"  said 
Elsie,  with  her  delicate  revel  of  laughter. 

They  passed  on,  and  a  few  moments'  walk  brought 
them  to  the  bridge  over  the  canal.  Under  the  bridge, 
and  beside  the  canal,  a  narrow  pathway  gave  entrance  to 
the  Valley.  "  You  can  now  bid  farewell  to  the  ordinary 
world  —  change  here  for  fairyland!'"  said  Fergus. 

Once  in  the  Valley  everything  savored  of  seclusion  and 
beauty.  Nature  was  cloistral  and  reverential  as  well  as 
lovely.  For  a  stage  tall  trees  filled  almost  all  the  space 
between  the  river  on  one  side  and  the  canal  on  the  other. 
They  could  see  lonely  fields  ranging  away  from  the 
further  side  of  the  river,  when  they  came  out  through  the 
trees  to  its  brink,  while  when  they  veered  round  to  the 
canal  side  there  was  nothing  visible  beyond  but  high 
ground  and  lonely  greenery.  Thus  they  seemed  to  be 
cut  away  from  the  world  and  humanity,  save  at  two 
picturesque  early  stages,  where  an  old  mill  and  another 
building  had  been  turned  by  Mr.  Milligan  to  new  fac 
tories  ;  and  even  here  the  signs  of  work  and  life  rather 
intensified  the  general  loneliness.  After  these  was  still- 


A  FAIRY  SKY-LARK  s  PHILOSOPHY  101 

ness.  At  almost  every  turn  the  river  and  the  riverside 
scenery  revealed  new  shades  of  loveliness.  They  spoke 
little;  the  heart  and  mind  seemed  to  demand  no  expres 
sion  here  —  the  quiet  ecstasy  was  all-sufficing.  After  a 
time  there  were  no  trees  for  a  spell,  the  Valley  narrowing 
to  a  green  strip  between  the  natural  and  the  artificial 
river,  the  scenery  on  either  side  still  beautiful  and  de 
serted.  Here  they  found  voice  and  chatted  a  little,  Fergus 
explaining  for  one  thing  the  puzzle  of  the  silent  canal. 
It  had  been  made  in  the  days  of  the  independent  Irish 
Parliament,  but  for  a  generation  it  had  been  silent  and 
neglected.  Lately,  however,  Mr.  Milligan's  scheme  for 
its  freeing  and  utilizing  had  been  concluded,  and  it  was 
to  play  a  liberal  part  in  the  new  projects  that  would  bring 
industrial  and  human  momentum  into  the  beautiful  Boyne 
Valley  desert. 

'  'Tis  hard  to  picture  human  activity  invading  this 
solitude,"  said  Elsie.  "  There  is  something  sacred  about 
it  —  sacred  and  a  little  awesome." 

After  a  while  they  were  under  trees  again,  and  the 
Valley  seemed  to  grow  more  cloistral  and  more  romantic. 
There  were  surprises  of  shading  and  of  river  magic  at 
every  stage.  The  scene  might  be  a  fairyland  into  which, 
by  some  amazing  and  benign  fortune,  they  had  strayed. 
At  last  they  came  to  a  lovely  piece  of  open  sward,  where 
the  river  widened  into  a  shining  lake-like  expanse,  an  old 
ruined  castle  rising  on  the  lonely  height-  beyond  the 
further  bank.  Many  had  been  their  wonder-glimpses 
since  they  entered  the  Valley,  but  there  was  a  mysterious 
sense  of  surprise  and  revelation  in  this.  Elsie's  eyes 
shone  as  if  she  had  suddenly  seen  a  faery  vision.  She 


102  TH£    PLOUGH    AND   TUtf    CROSS 

sat  down  on  the  bank  above  the  gleaming  expanse  of 
water.  "  Enchantment !  "  was  all  she  said. 

Fergus  sat  down  also.  After  a  few  moments  she 
turned  to  him  with  softly  shining  eyes. 

"  Do  you  know,"  she  said,  "  there  are  times  when 
talking  seems  a  poor,  primitive  contrivance  that  tries 
hopelessly  to  express  the  inexpressible.  That 's  how  I 
feel  at  this  moment.  What  I  'd  say  —  if  I  had  the  winged 
words  I  want  —  is  that  I  don't  seem  ever  to  have  been 
alive  till  now,  and  I  am  just  thinking  what  a  really  en 
chanting  thing  life  is." 

"  Well,  you  Ve  only  to  look  into  yourself  to  see  how 
beautiful  life  is,"  said  Fergus.  "  There  's  only  a  slight, 
all  but  spiritualized  bodily  vesture,  like  gauze,  between 
your  spirit  and  the  infinite.  So  you  are  your  own  fairy 
land.  Your  mind  can  always  revel  and  see  wonder. 
I  have  to  brush  away  tons  of  cloud,  and  scare  off  crowds 
of  dragons  and  tigers,  before  I  can  come  to  anything 
interesting  and  soulful  in  my  personality." 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,  there  's  no  use  in  pretending  that 
I  Ve  been  escorted  into  the  Boyne  Valley  by  a  menagerie." 

"  It  was  an  exercise  in  symbolic  comparison.  I  was 
trying  to  contrast  our  two  natures  and  experiences. 
While  you  are  easily  and  naturally  ethereal,  I  have  to 
get  out  of  dungeons  and  fight  dragons  before  I  can 
think  of  looking  upward,,  much  less  enjoying  any  spiritual 
soaring." 

"  Well,  I  may  be  ethereal  as  you  call  it,  but  it  is  the 
etherealism  of  a  sky-lark  that  is  tied  most  of  the  time 
in  a  wintry  bog.  Remember,  O  Man  of  the  Golden 


A    P'AIRY    SKY-IvARK'S    PHILOSOPHY  IO3 

Mists,  that  life  is  not  all  a  summer  afternoon  in  the  Boyne 
Valley." 

"  We  all,"  he  said,  "  get  into  an  absurd  habit  of  treating 
a  personality  as  something  definite  and  constant.  I  am 
twenty  things  myself,  and  fifteen  of  them  are  unknown 
to  my  personal  acquaintances,  and  seventeen  of  them 
have  never  been  expressed  in  the  paper.  As  for  you,  I 
know  your  shaded  moods,  yet  you  are  beautifully  light 
some  and  elfin  in  my  imagination " 

"  Young  man,  I  am  beginning  to  find  it  exceedingly 
difficult  to  live  up  to  your  lively  fancy.  About  twenty 
times  in  the  last  couple  of  years  I  had  made  up  my  mind 
to  settle  down  as  a  rational  and  fairly  level-headed  crea 
ture —  one  who  would  try  to  take  sober  and  sensible 
views  of  life.  Just  as  I  was  putting  the  finishing  touches 
each  time  to  my  decision,  and  was  admiring  it  in  my 
mental  looking-glass,  your  inevitable  ten-paged  letter 
came  and  set  my  fancy  romping  again,  playing  its  'star' 
part  of  fairy-child-skylark.  I  answered  in  kind,  and  the 
effect  on  your  work  has  been  bad.  I  can  always  trace 
it  easily.  After  receiving  a  letter  of  mine  there  's  a  crazy 
sense  of  irresponsibility  in  your  articles.  In  Irish  es 
pecially  you  throw  decorum  to  the  winds." 

"  Gaiety  of  manner  and  gravity  of  matter  you  mean," 
replied  Fergus.  "  It 's  the  mark  of  great  art.  There 
have  been  grave  and  learned  dissertations  as  to  the  secret 
of  the  'style'  of  Fainne  an  Lac,  but  nobody  has  guessed 
the  truth,  and  thought  of  giving  honor  where  honor  is 
due  —  to  her  whom  Maeve  in  facetious  moments  refers 
to  as  '  Our  Paris  Correspondent.'  " 


IO4  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

"  Don't  you  think  it  would  be  a  great  gain  if  I  ceased 
writing,  and  so  famous  an  organ  of  a  movement  got  a 
chance  of  possessing  more  sobriety  and  dignity?" 

"  Polite  names  for  dulness.  Your  letters  kindle  spirit 
ual  fire,  though  the  expression  of  it  for  the  benefit  of  a 
nation  is  sometimes  disguised  in  playful  forms.  It  is 
rapture  of  the  soul  all  the  same.  On  a  few  occasions 
when  you  were  slow  about  writing,  my  soul  seemed  to 
have  gone  out  in  the  cold.  I  was  forlorn  and  evil- 
mooded,  and  grew  very  nearly  as  dull  as  the  daily  papers. 
They  are  horrible  times  to  look  back  to." 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,  I  don't  believe  you  mean  half 
what  you  say,  or  that  you  care  a  pin  about  anybody," 
said  Elsie.  "  Your  imagination  simply  wants  something 
to  play  with,  and  it  has  kept  to  me  just  because  we  used 
to  be  so  much  together.  I  used  to  say  terribly  saucy 
things  in  my  natural  girlish  days,  and  you  got  a  literary 
interest  in  them  and  me.  My  tongue  appealed  to  your 
sense  of  '  style.'  I  object  to  be  considered  in  a  cold, 
scientific  way  as  a  '  subject.' ': 

"If  you  were  not  quite  so  absolutely  charming,"  he 
said,  "  I  'd  have  had  to  bring  you  home  and  marry  you 
a  good  while  ago.  Somewhat  less  charming  than  you  are, 
I  'd  want  you  near  me  always  in  order  to  preserve  the 
delightful  sense  you  impart.  But  you  are  so  unique  in 
your  glow  and  sweetness  that  just  to  know  you  are  in 
it  is  a  feast  to  mind  and  spirit.  And  so  I  've  been  able 
to  reconcile  myself  to  the  thought  of  deferring  the  happy 
time  till  the  world  went  well.  Sometimes  in  truth  a 
half-fear  used  to  come  over  me  that  you  were  too  delicate 
and  ethereal  for  ordinary  human  relations  at  all;  that 


A  FAIRY  SKY-LARK'S  PHILOSOPHY  105 

it  would  be  cruel  to  bring  you  down  to  earth.  I  now 
believe  that  you  '11  be  perfectly  serene  there." 

She  looked  into  his  face  and  laughed  musically. 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,"  she  said,  "  I  am  sometimes  in 
doubt  whether  you  are  intensely  warm-hearted,  or  the 
most  cold-hearted  person  in  the  world.  And  when  you 
talk  I  am  not  always  certain  that  you  are  not  playing 
with  words  and  unconsciously  weaving  leading  articles. 
Don't  practise  on  me,  please,  in  this  lovely  hour  of  life 
and  on  my  first  visit  to  the  Boyne  Valley.  Your  '  prose 
fancy '  about  marriage  is  characteristically  cheeky.  You 
never  spoke  this  way  before." 

"  Words  are  crude  where  sympathy,  feeling,  and  under 
standing  are  so  fine.  Besides,  you  know  my  inner  and 
outer  life  has  not  been  in  an  exactly  placid  and  settled 
state  hitherto.  Indeed,  I  cannot  call  it  so  even  now; 
but  it  is  promising,  and  anyway  we  cannot  play  with 
destiny  indefinitely." 

"  You  think  you  have  nothing  to  do  —  now  that  the 
Boyne  Valley,  and  perhaps  the  '  Birds  of  Angus/  have 
affected  your  imagination  —  but  to  make  up  your  mind, 
and  reach  out  your  hand  for  your  fairy  skylark.  But 
up  in  the  blue  she  's  taken  notes  of  the  wayward  artistic 
hearts  down  below,  and  she  knows  that  Boyne  Valley 
summer  moods  are  one  thing,  and  Boyne  Valley  (and 
Dublin)  autumn  and  winter  moods  quite  another  thing. 
The  little  bird  is  glic,  as  we  say  in  Irish,  and  she  knows 
that  when  the  mood  changed  she  would  be  a  fairy  sky 
lark  no  longer.  She  might  be  regarded  —  well,  as  crows 
are  regarded  by  some  people." 

"  The   sweet  little   thing  might   at  least  be   just,"   he 


IO6  TIIU    PLOUGH    AND   Tlltf    CROSS 

declared.  "  She  forgets  that  I  said  that  I  quite  liked 
crows.  But  she  must  have  a  positively  fantastic  imagina 
tion  if  she  can  see  herself  ever  pictured  as  a  crow." 

"  The  fairy  sky-lark  is  also  exceedingly  proud.  The 
thought  of  being  a  burden  on  a  toiling  fellow-creature 
is  painful  to  her.  While  she  can  work  out  her  destiny 
in  her  own  impetuous  way  she  is  comparatively  happy. 
Fainne  an  Lae  has  said  more  than  once  that  the  social 
order  must  be  re-organized,  and  woman  made  economic 
ally  independent,  and  then  she  can  marry  with  a  lighter 
heart.  I  think  the  best  way  "  —  she  smiled  mischievously 
— "  to  bring  about  that  re-organization  of  the  social 
order  is  for  women  to  refuse  to  marry  until  it  is  done. 
I  '11  take  your  strenuous,  Golden- Age  paper  at  its  word, 
Fergus  O'Hagan.  I  simply  won't  entertain  the  idea  of 
marriage  till  your  humanizing,  artistic,  socialist  regime 
is  established." 

As  she  spoke,  she  laid  her  hand  gently  on  his  shoulder, 
and  looked  up  into  his  eyes  quizzically. 

"A  mere  debating  '  point '  is  unworthy  of  your  subtle 
genius.  The  emancipation  of  the  average  woman  was 
mentioned  as  an  incidental  gain  and  glory  of  the  new 
order.  The  emancipation  exists  already  where  the  man 
and  woman  are  high-minded,  and  appreciate  the  human 
and  spiritual  individuality  of  each  other  —  such  men  and 
women  are  really  socialists,  forerunners  of  the  new  order. 
You  will  have  absolutely  all  the  freedom  you  desire " 

"  Young  man  you  must  not  try  to  make  me  foolish. 
Of  course,  to  me  you  are  one  apart,  and  life  would  seem 
unnatural  if  you  were  not  fond  of  me,  and  I  of  you  —  in 
a  reasonable  way,  of  course "  —  she  laid  a  delightful 


A    FAIRY    SKY-IvARK'S    PHILOSOPHY  IO? 

emphasis  on  the  "  reasonable  "  —  "  but  you  can't  manu 
facture  a  golden  halo  for  me,  especially  when  we  get  back 
from  this  enchanted  valley  to  the  workaday  world." 

"  There  is  to  be  no  workaday  world  any  more,"  he 
replied.  "  I  shan't  let  you  return  to  Paris.  So  work 
will  be  henceforth  a  thing  of  inspiration  and  joy,  as  life 
will  have  found  its  inspiring  and  explaining  beauty." 

"  How  very  like  a  socialist  leading  article !  "  she  re 
sponded  teasingly.  "  I  wonder  if  I  were  unkind  enough 
to  take  you  at  your  word,  would  you  try  all  your  leaders 
on  the  shoulders  —  I  mean  the  wings  —  of  your  poor 
fairy  sky-lark?" 

The  conversation  became  a  little  too  romantically  friv 
olous  for  serious  history. 

"  I  have  a  vague  memory,"  said  Elsie  at  last,  "  that 
part  of  today's  program  was  a  visit  to  a  farm  or  some 
thing  of  that  kind.  You  haven't  said  anything  about  it, 
or  of  the.  ordinary  concerns  of  life  for  some  hours. 
Won't  it  take  some  time  to  see  everything  before  catching 
the  last  train  for  Dublin  ?  " 

He  looked  at  his  watch  with  a  little  start.  It  was 
over  a  full  hour  later  than  he  thought,,  and  the  last  train 
for  Dublin  had  gone  from  Baile  na  Boinne ! 


CHAPTER  XII 

PARTS  OR  THE   HEBRIDES? 


HE  loss  of  the  last  train,  and  the 
comparative  lateness  of  the  hour, 
did  not  worry  Fergus  greatly.  After 
a  few  moments'  thought  he  appeared 
to  be  rather  pleased  and  relieved. 
There  was  plenty  of  accommodation, 
he  said,  in  the  quaint  old  house  on 
the  little  farm.  Sean  O'Carroll  and 
his  wife,  his  own  brothers  and  their 
wives,  and  the  new  colonists  gener 
ally,  would  be  delighted  to  have  them 
for  the  evening.  They  were  all  choice  spirits  and  very 
racy  of  the  soil.  It  would  be  a  night  of  their  childhood 
in  the  South  restored.  Maeve  would  understand  —  he 
had  missed  the  last  train  before.  She  would  be  blithely 
sarcastic  indeed  when  they  returned ;  but  there  was  an 
intellectual  savor  in  her  sarcasm  which  raised  it  to  the 
dignity  of  literature.  Anyhow,  with  Elsie  to  the  fore, 
Fergus  said,  he  could  bear  anything.  She  seemed,  as 
it  were,  his  finer  self,  spiritualized  and  airy,  and  set 
gracefully  beside  him,  instead  of  being  a  component  part 


PARIS  OR  THE:  HEBRIDES?  109 

of  him.  Now  he  had  new  light  on  the  great  Eden  story 
of  Man's  ideal  mate  being  formed  from  within  himself. 

"  How  foolish  you  '11  think  all  these  passing  enthusi 
asms  when  you  come  to  sober  middle  age !  "  said  Elsie, 
laughing.  "  I  know  you  better  than  you  know  yourself. 
Neither  you  nor  Maeve  could  ever  be  really  in  love,  for 
you  have  not  sufficient  passion.  In  either  case  what  you 
would  regard  as  love  would  be  just  a  phase  of  intellectual 
enthusiasm.  If  under  the  spell  of  the  enthusiasm  you 
happened  to  get  married  you  would  be  mightily  dis 
gusted  with  yourself  for  the  rest  of  your  life.  Anyway, 
you  have  deeper  work  to  do  than  idealizing  an  individual, 
though  that  temporary  process  may  be  a  necessary  part 
of  your  mental  education,  and  may  make  you  a  little 
more  human." 

Fergus  laughed. 

"Are  you,  too,  amongst  the  philosophers?  They  are 
astonishingly  plentiful  in  New  Ireland.  I  fear  we  have 
too  much  philosophy,  and  that  we  live  in  the  air  rather 
than  in  the  nation.  Your  present  piece  of  philosophy 
would  be  dangerous  if  it  were  serious.  The  real,  subtle, 
and  lasting  love  is  precisely  that  which  is  suffused  with 
intellectual  enthusiasm." 

"  Like  all  true  teachers,"  Elsie  declared  gaily,  "  I  must 
wait  patiently  for  justification.  In  serious  middle  age, 
when  the  golden  mists  and  irresponsible  moods  are  gone, 
you  will  wonder  at  my  insight.  Come  away  now,  like 
a  good  boy,  and  get  on  with  the  work  of  life." 

"  I  'm  afraid  that  it  will  be  terribly  difficult  to  get  on 
with  what  you  call  the  work  of  life.  In  great  moods  of 
religious  exaltation  mystics  gave  up  the  world,  became 


no  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

hermits,  and  led  lives  of  ecstatic  contemplation.  I  under 
stand  the  attitude  and  the  spirit  now.  My  affection  is 
mysticism  —  a  divine  spell  and  dream  in  which  I  want 
to  revel,  far  from  the  breath  of  the  rough  world." 

"  Don't  you  think,  Fergus  O'Hagan,  that  you  are 
dropping  into  careless  and  conventional  ways  when  you 
allow  yourself  to  speak  of  such  things  as  '  the  rough 
world  '  ?  Don't  you  see  the  magnificent  stage  you  have  ? 
Look  over  at  that  wonderful  setting  sun,  which  has  made 
these  glorious  hours  possible  for  us.  By-and-bye  there 
will  be  a  revel  of  stars  that  ought  to  entrance  you.  Why, 
kings,  or  even  gods,  could  not  be  better  served.  Yet 
Fergus  O'Hagan,  you  have  the  coolness  to  talk  of  the 
'rough  world/  Even  I,  light-minded  creature  that  I  am, 
don't  feel  that  way  when  I  'm  away  at  the  office  of 
La  vie  domestique,  writing  about  sleek  cats  and  silly 
pug  dogs." 

"And,  shades  of  Angus !  "  he  said,  "  what  cruelty  and 
waste  of  beautiful  life  is  such  an  existence  for  you !  How 
on  earth  is  it  that  I  did  not  see  the  weary  tragedy  of  it 
before  ?  I  cannot  let  you  back  again " 

A  smile,  half-sad,  half-amused,  played  upon  her  lips. 

"  You  are  getting  more  delightfully  and  wildly  im 
practicable  every  moment,"  was  what  she  said.  Then, 
after  a  pause :  "  Don't  fear  for  me.  I  have  my  own 
kingdom,  which  I  regulate  and  rule  rather  tyrannically 
—  except  on  holiday  spells.  I  am  not  sure,  though,  that 
I  shall  return  to  Paris.  If  you  were  not  in  such  a  grave 
mood  in  the  latter  part  of  the  train  journey  you  'd  have 
heard  Lord  Strathbarra  say  that  he  'd  like  me  to  become 
his  private  secretary.  In  his  mixture  of  Renaissance  and 


PARIS    OR    THE    HEBRIDES?  Ill 

Reformation  in  the  Hebrides  he  expects  his  correspond 
ence  to  be  immense." 

A  shade  passed  over  Fergus's  face.  He  looked  keenly 
at  Elsie  before  he  spoke. 

"  The  presumption  of  Lord  Strathbarra  is  beyond 
description/'  he  declared.  "  I  hope  he  '11  come  into  clash 
with  the  bishops  straight  away,  or  with  Rome  itself. 
Then  he  '11  have  quite  enough  to  think  about.  His  deep 
design " 

Elsie  placed  her  fingers  on  his  lips. 

"  I  have  not  said  yet  that  I  was  going,  Fergus  O'Hagan. 
I  was  just  trying  you,  and  your  nature  is  more  impetuous 
and  jealous  than  I  thought.  Let  us  get  away  to  that 
farm-house  of  yours  —  if  it  really  exists." 

"Alas !  "  he  said,  as  he  rose,  "  it  is  really  getting  late, 
and  I  suppose  we  must  go.  But  I  shrink  from  all  other 
human  society  now  —  in  the  presence  of  others  you  won't 
seem  to  belong  wholly  to  me " 

"And,  conceited  man,  who  told  you  that  I  belong 
wholly  to  you  ? "  she  asked,  with  vehemence  through 
which  laughter  broke. 

"  It  has  often  puzzled  me,"  he  said,  ignoring  her  ques 
tion,  "  that  Naisi,  on  his  flight  with  Deirdre  to  Scotland, 
should  have  been  glad  of  the  company  of  his  brothers 
and  others,  though,  of  course,  there  were  reasons  for 
their  flight,  too.  Even  one's  brothers  must  be  a  little 
out  of  place  on  a  honeymoon.  By  the  way,  what  a 
lovely  heroine  is  Deirdre  —  the  most  winning,  tender, 
devoted,  and  romantic  woman  even  in  our  hero-sagas. 
She  must  have  been  like  you  in  the  days  when  she  was 


H2  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

wooed  and  won,  though  I  do  not  think  that  she  had 
your  charming  piquancy  and  playfulness." 

Elsie  took  hold  of  his  arm. 

"  Come  away,  maker  of  golden  halos,"  she  said.  "  If 
you  love  me  "  —  she  laughed  musically  —  "  bring  me  to 
this  alleged  homestead  of  yours.  I  heard  you  croon  a 
verse  in  the  office  today.  One  line  I  remember : 

He  follows  after  shadows,  the  King  of  Ireland's  son. 
I  begin  to  fear  that  you  are  the  king's  son." 

"  Then  you  'd  be  the  princess,  and  in  due  course  the 
queen.  Wouldn't  you  like  it  ?  " 

"  What !  in  a  land  of  shadows !  There  would  be  no 
other  woman  before  whom  I  could  show  off  my  crown ; 
and  so  —  according  to  men's  theory  of  women  —  there 
would  be  no  pleasure  in  life." 

"And  do  you  imagine  that  I  'd  try  to  fit  you  into  a 
mere  '  theory  of  women  '  ?  You  are  you,  outside  and 
above  all  theory,  unique." 

"Fergus  O'Hagan,  a  week's  ploughing  —  on  a  real 
farm  —  would  do  you.  good,  and  bring  you  down  to  the 
realities  of  life." 

Some  minutes  later  they  crossed  a  bridge,  and  a  brisk 
walk  over  a  lonely  road,  and  then  along  a  lonelier  lane, 
brought  them  to  the  quaint  old  house  in  Cluainlumney. 
Down  the  fields  they  could  see  the  new  cottages  of  his 
brothers  and  the  other  pioneers  of  tillage  in  that  lovely, 
long-deserted  place.  .  .  . 

Already,  comparatively  brief  though  the  time  and  the 
journey  were,  Fergus  O'Hagan  had  begun  to  experience 


PARIS  OR  THE;  HEBRIDES?  113 

one  of  those  tormenting  and  inexplicable  changes  of 
mood  which  sometimes  set  his  inner  life  awry.  Or, 
rather,  he  seemed  to  consist  of  two  selves,  one  of  which 
sat  in  pitiless  judgment  on  the  other.  Sometimes  when 
he  felt  keenly  he  wrote  intensely  and  without  any  reserve, 
and,  as  we  have  seen  earlier,  by  the  time  the  proof  or  the 
printed  words  arrived  there  came  also  the  distressing 
sense  that  the  revelation  was  too  personal  and  intimate  — 
that  it  was,  as  it  were,  like  tearing  out  a  piece  of  one's 
soul  and  flinging  it  from  the  house-tops  into  the  market 
place.  However,  with  confidences  in  a  mere  newspaper 
one  had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  they  were  in 
the  first  place  anonymous,  and  in  the  second  short-lived. 
One  brief,  kindly  week  consigned  them,  par  grande  vitcsse, 
to  oblivion,  and  the  Ego  would  go  back  to  its  mellow 
and  sacred  solitude.  The  talk  with  Elsie  was  very  differ 
ent.  To  be  sure,  all  those  river-side  references  to  affec 
tion  and  the  future  had  been  in  playful  wise,  and  his  and 
Elsie's  relation  and  harmony  of  association  had  been  such 
that  it  all  seemed  like  talking  to  one's  self.  Yet  somehow 
he  had  now  the  disturbing  feeling  that  it  was  crude,  and 
that  it  had  broken  a  delicate  and  delightful  spell.  It  had 
brushed  away  the  subtle  poetry,  and  brought  something 
common  if  not  vulgar  into  his  relation  to  Elsie.  For 
an  idealist,  he  had  some  peculiar  feelings,  or  rather 
qualms,  about  marriage,  partly  because  he  had  known 
among  his  friends  in  more  lands  than  one  rather  distress 
ing  failures,  for  no  obvious  reason,  in  that  trying  and 
sensitive  state ;  the  best  of  men  seemed  to  fail  hope 
lessly  at  times  in  the  reverential  attitude  due  to  the 
women  they  really  prized  when  all  was  said;  and  the 


114  THE   PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

best  of  the  women  seemed  to  be  fated  on  occasions  to  stir 
up  not  the  higher  but  the  lower  natures  of  their  husbands. 
With  the  most  Christian  and  chivalrous  spirit  in  both 
there  seemed  often  a  spiritual  deterioriation,  which 
showed  what  a  severe  task  even  Christianity  had  with 
the  wayward  children  of  Adam.  And  again,  with  the 
uncertainty  and  cruelty  of  present  social  conditions  he 
often  felt  —  especially  in  the  slums  of  Dublin  —  that 
the  man  who  adventured  on  marriage  was  either  an  im 
pulsive  idiot,  or  a  sublime  if  somewhat  thoughtless  hero. 

But  apart  from  general  notions  and  qualms,  some  of 
which  he  had  shrunk  from  analysing,  Elsie  was  a  problem 
all  to  herself,  quite  different  he  was  sure  from  woman 
kind  in  general.  He  had  a  poetical,  delicately  undefined 
feeling  that  it  would  be  well  and  delightful  if  he  and 
she  could  remain  young  indefinitely;  always  kindred  in 
spirit  and  eagerly  interested  in  life,  which  would  thus  be 
a  sort  of  congenial  un-idling  Eden.  He  would  be  quite 
contented  thus  to  go  on,  thus  to  work  and  dream,  and 
wait  the  still  fuller  communion  of  soul'  in  another  life 
and  star.  The  trouble  would  be  if  someone  else  of  a 
more  matter-of-fact  and  unidealistic  turn  of  mind  came 
along  and  wanted  to  marry  Elsie  on  earth.  That  would 
be  intolerable  and  bitter,  but  in  our  imperfect  planet  such 
disagreeable  things  happened. 

Was  not  Lord  Strathbarra,  impressed  if  not  positively 
devoted,  already  on  the  scene,  shadowing  the  landscape 
within  the  very  heart  of  Eden?  Lord  Strathbarra  of  all 
men,  who  with  his  vivid  knowledge  of  the  early  Fathers 
and  his  epic  dreams  of  a  transcendental  Church  and  State, 
ought  to  have  no  place  whatever  in  his  philosophy  for 


PARIS    OR    THE)    HDBRIDBS?  115 

feminism,  in  the  abstract  or  the  concrete !  Fergus  blamed 
Lord  Strathbarra  severely  for  his  own  distracting  depart 
ure  from  idealism  by  the  riverside,  and  for  the  compli 
cations  which  he  felt  and  feared  would  ensue. 

The  fact  remained  that  the  Birds  of  Angus  had  been 

tempted  back  to  the  Boyne  Valley,  and .     Even  an 

editor  —  who  gets  into  a  politely  autocratic  way  of  doing 
things,  and  develops  absurdly  false  notions  of  his  power 
and  influence  —  could  not  crowd  them  out,  even  for  a 
week,  on  the  plea  of  want  of  space. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

VITA    NOVA  "    IN    TH£    BOYNE) 


jERGUS  being  a  frequent  and  sometimes 
an  unexpected  visitor  at  Cluainlumney, 
Sean  O'Carroll  and  Maire,  his  wife,  were 
never  unprepared  for  him.  But  they 
were  delighted  and  excited  by  the  coming 
of  Elsie,  whom  they  had  last  seen  in  the 
South  some  years  before.  They,  like  all 
who  had  seen  her,  had  lively  memories  of  her. 
She  had  been  a  special  favorite  of  Maire's 
and  had  written  many  a  letter  for  her  to  her 
daughters  in  America.  "  God  bless  you,  a  char  a 
mo  chroidhe"  Maire  used  to  say,  "  but  you  do  it  betther 
than  me  own  heart  could  do  it,  full  an'  tendher  as  it  is 
this  blessed  day."  "  But  wait/'  Sean  would  say,  "  till 
she  '11  be  writin'  her  own  love-letthers.  There  's  some  boy 
takin'  the  world  aisy  today,  little  knowin'  the  joy  an' 
glory  that  's  in  store  for  him."  "  Let  him  take  it  aisy," 
Maire  would  retort,  "  an'  let  him  keep  on  takin'  it  aisy 
till  his  hearse  overtakes  him.  Elsie  is  too  good  for  any 
man  that  ever  stood  in  two  shoes,  an'  'tisn't  throublin' 
her  head  about  their  silly  notions  she  '11  be." 

Meeting  Sean  and  Maire  quite  at  home  in  the  quaint 


"VITA  NOVA"  IN  THE:  BOYNE  VAI^KY  119 

old  house  was  to  Elsie  like  a  grand  heartsome  whiff  of 
the  life  of  other  days  in  the  South.  Sean's  long,  thin 
face  was  somehow  a  study  in  drollery,  even  when  in 
repose,  comicality  almost  always  peering  out  from  the 
corners  of  his  eyes ;  being  with  difficulty  restrained  even 
at  church  and  during  thunderstorms.  Maire  was  serious 
and  plaintive  in  air  and  outlook,  but  she  had  a  heart  of 
gold,  and  was  unbounded  in  her  affection.  In  a  kitchen 
there  was  at  once  something  motherly  and  queenly  about 
her ;  there  was  a  flavor  of  heroic  times  and  hospitalities 
in  the  way  she  set  a  table  and  a  meal  and  tried  to  warm 
the  heart  of  the  visitor  towards  the  fare  and  the  par 
taking  thereof.  Her  present  kitchen  was  a  spacious 
one,  and  she  took  a  noble  pride  in  it,  giving  it  a  delightful 
sense  of  homeliness  and  comfort,  so  that  to  Elsie,  as  to 
Fergus  always,  it  brought  a  sense  of  the  homeliness  and 
cheer  of  the  early  home  life,  long  a  tender  memory. 

Sean  went  out  and  brought  over  Kevin  and  Art  and 
their  wives,  and  when  the  merry  greetings  were  over  it 
was  a  joyous  home  circle  that  sat  round  the  table,  while 
Sean  from  the  chimney  corner  —  he  had  a  weakness  for 
chimney  corners  even  in  summer  —  interjected  his  droll 
remarks  on  almost  every  subject  that  cropped  up.  When 
he  had  no  remark  to  make  he  crooned  in  his  quaint  and 
curious  way  a  snatch  from  one  of  his  rare  stock  of  old 
country  ditties.  Then  he  joined  in  the  chat  again,  and 
suddenly,  with  the  oddest  effect,  cast  his  eye  humorously 
up  the  chimney  and  crooned  a  snatch  of  a  wholly  differ 
ent  sone.  The  airs  were  racy  of  the  soil,  the  words  for 
the  most  part  a  mixture  of  raciness  and  craziness.  Now 
it  was : 


I2O  THE   PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

The  Divil  came  to  me  one  day  at  the  plough, 
"  Oro,    Patterson  !      Poor   Dick   Patterson  !  " 

Anon  it  was : 

A  tidy  woman  !     A  tidy  woman  ! 

A  tidy  woman  was  Mdirin! 
She  milked  the  cow  in  the  tail  of  her  gown, 

And  carried  it  home  in  her  prdiscin! 

And  so  on  through  quite  a  singular  series.  He  made 
impromptu  rhymes  occasionally  by  way  of  reply  to 
remarks  of  his  young  neighbors,  Art  and  Kevin.  Both 
of  the  latter  were  different  in  temperament  from  Fergus, 
except  in  their  love  of  country  things  and  interests  and 
their  taste  for  music.  Their  literary  preferences  were 
romantic  tales  and  ghost  lore.  They  were  intensely  inter 
ested  in  the  land  and  its  powers  —  they  had  been  testing 
some  of  Kropotkin's  theories  with  zeal  and  profit  since 
Fergus  had  sent  them  Fields,  Factories,  and  Workshops 
—  they  loved  and  understood  Nature  and  her  magic  much 
more  than  they  consciously  realized ;  they  were  so  strong 
and  interested  that  labor  was  a  joy  to  them,  and  they 
delighted  in  music  and  country  sports  and  pastimes  when 
it  was  over.  Their  wives  were  fresh  and  bonny  girls 
from  their  own  neighborhood.  The  patent  content  and 
happiness  of  all  four  set  Elsie  wondering  a  little  wistfully. 
Why  did  it  seem  a  distant  dream  —  something  almost  of 
another  realm  than  this  —  to  think  that  she  and  Fergus 
could  ever  attain  so  radiantly  content  and  undisturbed  a 
state  ? 

There  were  a  hundred  things  to  talk  over,  but  the 
seanchus  turned  ever  and  anon  from  the  new  days  in 
Meath  to  other  days  and  neighbors  in  the  kindly  South. 


"  VITA    NOVA  "    IN    Til  15    13OYN£   VALI^Y  121 


Every  heart  was  warmed  though  tears  trickled  down 
Maire's  cheeks  at  the  name  and  thought  of  the  loved  ones 
over-sea.  Fergus  said  that  these,  too/  should  return; 
there  was  room,  and  more  than  room,  nigh  the  long 
lonely  Boyne  for  all.  At  this  Maire  wept  unrestrained, 
and  all  other  eyes  softened  and  glistened. 

At  length,  leaving  Maire  to  her  household  duties,  the 

others  went  out,  strolled  round  the  pleasant  garden  and 

orchard  at  the  back  of  the  house  —  and  then  passed  to 

the  sanded  space  and  large  stretch  of  sward  in  front.    In 

the  center  of  the  sward  was  a  great  drooping-ash  with 

seats  underneath,  forming  what  Fergus  called  a  romantic 

bower  —  and  truly  it  now  looked  romantic  in  the  soft 

early  moonlight.    Kevin  and  Art  had  brought  their  fiddles, 

and  presently,  seated  underneath  the  drooping-ash,  they 

thrilled  the  loneliness  with  melody.     Elsie  had  just  re 

marked  what  a  pity  it  was  that  there  was  not  a  merry 

muster  for  a  dance  on  the  sward,  when  boys  and  girls 

from  the  cottages  hurried  in.     They  were  followed  at  a 

brief   interval   by   men   and   women.      Soon   came   boys 

and  girls  from  the  few  houses  somewhat  farther  afield. 

Dancing  parties  were  formed  on  the  green  as  readily  and 

gaily  as  if  all  this  were  the   recognized   and   inevitable 

business  of  life  in  evenings  and  nights  after  toil.     The 

scene  rang  with  melody  and  gaiety.     Fergus  explained 

to  Elsie,  who  was  his  partner  in  the  dance,  that  it  was 

always  thus  on  such  occasions.     The  sound  of  the  fiddle 

on  the  sward  or  elsewhere  brought  the  young  neighbors. 

and  indeed  the  old,  forthwith  ;    and  dance  and  sons:  and 

scanchus  succeeded.     There  was  absolutely  nothing1  that 

could  be  called   formal  about  Cluainlumnev,  but  it  had 


122  THE    PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

come  to  be  particularly  understood  that  the  sound  of  music 
was  a  special  sign  and  token  that  home  and  heart  were 
open,  and  that  all  who  willed  were  thereby  cordially 
invited  to  the  fun  and  frolic. 

After  an  hour  of  the  dancing  Elsie  stood,  excited  and 
eager,  inside  of  the  front  room  window  in  view  of  the 
merry  parties  that  still  kept  up  the  sport.     Fergus  said 
that  he  would  introduce  her  to  a  few  young  men  who 
would  show  her  the  stuff  of  which  the  new  "  colonists  " 
were  made,  and  he  went  out  for  the  said  young  men  who, 
he  saw,  had  now  ceased  dancing.     Two  were  assistant 
teachers  in  the  forlorn-looking  school  at  Baile  na  Boinne 
—  keen,   alert,   and   genial   young   men   they  were,   and 
excellent  Irish  speakers.     The  third  was  a  poet  and  a 
traveling  teacher  under  the  Gaelic  League.    All  three  had 
taken  cottages  and  plots  at  Cluainlumney,  to  which  they 
devoted  their  evenings.     They  had  recently  married,  and 
had  that  look  of  serene  content  which  Elsie  had  noted 
on  the  faces  of  Fergus's  brothers.     Just  as  Fergus  went 
out  they  were  joined  by  two  young  priests,  both  seminary 
professors,  who  had  strolled  down  from  Baile  na  Boinne, 
and  an  animated  seanchus  ensued.    The  priests,  who  had 
not  been  long  out  of  Maynooth,  were  curiously  different 
types.     One,  Father  Wilson,  looked  almost  boyish ;    he 
had  a  handsome,  affectionate,  wistful  face  that  bespoke 
the  dreamer  and  the  artist.     The  other,  Father  Kenealy, 
was  also  very  young,  but  he  was  tall  and  of  fine  bearing 
and  presence ;   his  calm,  intellectual  face  had  an  expres 
sion  of  courage,  candor,  and  manliness.     One  he  looked 
who  was  destined  to  be  a  teacher  and  leader  of  his  genera 
tion,  but  one  who  would  be  the  frank  and  helpful  comrade 


"VITA  NOVA"  IN  THE  BOYNE  VAU.EY  123 

even  as  he  led.  As  he  made  no  secret  of  his  conviction 
that  the  British  Government  had  not  the  slightest  moral 
sanction  in  Ireland,  and  that  bishops  who  said  otherwise 
were  politicians  whose  conversion  should  be  earnestly 
prayed  for,  he  was  idolized  by  young  Nationalists;  and 
as  his  religious  preaching  and  teaching  was  at  once  human, 
virile,  and  broad-minded,  with  a  gracious  flavor  of  thought 
and  culture,  he  was  much  discussed  by  the  older  priests 
and  a  fearful  joy  to  the  younger,  his  friend  Father  Wilson 
most  of  all. 

As  the  two  young  priests  and  the  three  teachers  came 
in  with  Fergus,  Elsie  noticed  with  a  certain  wonder  the 
easy,  cordial,  intimate  terms  on  which  they  associated; 
in  other  years  she  had  never  noted  such  a  spirit  of  cama 
raderie  between  cleric  and  laic.  They  came  in  chatting 
gaily  in  Irish,  and  the  merry  muster  seemed  to  have  given 
a  new  spirit  to  all  except  Father  Wilson,  on  whose 
boyish  face  there  was  a  shade.  Father  Kenealy  rallied 
him  thereon  when  the  introductions  to  Elsie  were  over. 

"  We  have  been  talking  of  clerical  dictation,"  he 
explained  to  Elsie,  "  and  Father  Wilson  expects  the  sky 
to  fall  straight  down  on  Cluainlumney." 

"  They  don't  want  any  independence  or  character  in 
the  laity,"  said  Seamus,  one  of  the  assistant  teachers, 
continuing  the  discussion.  "  We  in  the  schools,  who  are 
in  the  grip  of  the  clerical  managers,  can  hardly  call  our 
souls  our  own,  or  if  we  try  to  do  so  it  is  with  the  prospect 
of  dismissal  before  us.  And  then  look  at  the  efforts  the 
clergy  all  round  are  making  to  prevent  the  establishment 
of  a  public  library  in  Baile  na  Boinne.  They  Ve  been  to 
all  the  councillors,  and  when  the  question  comes  up  next 


124  '-THE    PLOUGH    AND   THE)    CROSS 

week  all  except  one  or  two  will  be  afraid  to  go  against 
the  wishes  of  the  priests.  So  the  people  must  remain 
without  books.  All  the  clergy  —  the  young  Irish  Ireland 
priests,  of  course,  excepted  —  are  against  knowledge  for 
the  people.  And  Fainne  an  Lae,  with  all  its  grand  ideals 
of  a  progressive  clergy,  is  appealing  to  them  in  vain. 
The  Boyne  is  as  much  open  to  ideas." 

Father  Wilson  looked  pained. 

"  Seamus !  Seamus !  "  he  said  wistfully.  "  You  are 
getting  more  and  more  extreme.  The  older  priests 
doubtless  do  not  understand  the  new  time,  and  they  have 
their  faults,  but  they  mean  well.  They  stand  for  interests 
compared  with  which  even  knowledge  and  nation  are 
nothing.  And  the  obedience  of  the  people  shows  the 
instinct  of  humanity  for  a  theocracy,  the  natural  gov 
ernment  for  all  the  world.  I  'm  —  I  'm  —  I  'm  getting 
afraid  of  the  Gaelic  League  and  the  new  ideas.  They 
seemed  grand  in  Maynooth,  but  they  may  lead  to  some 
calamity  —  something  that  would  injure  the  prestige  of 
the  Church." 

Father  Wilson  had  been  a  zealous  member  of  the  Co- 
lumban  League  in  Maynooth,  and  had  come  out  into  the 
world  full  of  enthusiasm  for  Irish  ideas,  and  full  of  the 
faith  that  the  priests  of  the  new  day  could  be  strenuous 
Irishmen.  He  found  that  the  priests  as  a  rule,  in  the 
diocese  of  Meath,  were  not  of  his  way  of  thinking. 
They  disliked  ideas,  including  Irish  ideas.  His  spirit  was 
troubled  in  consequence,  his  young  life  made  chill  and 
lonely,  intensely  so  till  the  coming  of  Father  Kenealy. 
He  was  too  gentle  and  sensitive  to  do  battle  for  his  ideas : 
and,  indeed,  the  little  world  in  which  he  habitually  moved 


IN  THE:  BOYNE  vAi^EiY  125 

would  chill  the  enthusiasm  of  far  stronger  souls.  When 
he  found  himself  amongst  congenial  spirits  his  nature 
rose  and  expanded  again,  and  he  was  happy  till  some 
one  happened  to  question  some  phase  of  clerical  policy 
in  Ireland.  Then,  as  on  the  present  occasion,  he  trembled 
for  the  prestige  of  the  Church. 

"  But  surely/'  said  Fergus  in  reply  to  his  plaint,  "  the 
Church  is  a  spiritual  force,  and  her  mission  is  a  spiritual 
one.  She  was  never  promised  secular  dominance,  and 
unhappy  efforts  to  secure  it  led  to  blood  and  havoc  and 
moral  disaster  in  Europe.  And  in  any  case  the  clergy 
are  not  the  Church." 

Father  Wilson  liked  Fergus  as  the  latter  was  one  of 
the  very  few  with  whom  he  could  discuss  literature, 
politics,  and  life;  and  he  found  a  fearful  joy  in  Fainne 
an  Lae.  He  could  not  discover  anything  wrong  in  its 
columns  himself,  but  he  heard  conservative  clerics  say 
that  it  stood  for  subtle  and  dangerous  doctrines  of  na 
tionality  and  independence.  He  feared  the  coming  of 
anathema  and  strife,  and  his  gentle  spirit  was  more 
clouded  than  ever. 

"  Oh,  my  dear  Fergus,"  he  said,  "  these  are  risky  things 
to  teach  our  people,  whose  faith  has  been  so  simple  and 
unquestioning.  I  earnestly  wish  that  Fainne  an  Lae 
would  go  slowly  and  cautiously.  Sudden  light  is  unbear 
able  by  eyes  long  accustomed  to  dimness." 

The  poet,  who  had  been  gazing  delightedly  from  the 
window  towards  the  dancers,  now  chimed  in : 

"  Fainne  an  Lae  is  a  grand  paper,"  he  said,  "  and  we 
all  owe  it  a  debt  we  can  never  repay.  But  I  wish  it  would 
keep  altogether  to  the  things  that  interest  the  mind  of  the 


126  THE    PIvOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

Gael.  It  goes  out  into  strange  foreign  ground  sometimes. 
Sure,  only  last  week  it  had  something  in  Irish  about 
Darwin  and  Evolution,  and  what  Gael  ever  troubled 
about  things  like  these  ?  They  'd  simply  spoil  our  beauti 
ful  and  reverent  language." 

Fergus  laughed  a  kindly  laugh.  So  did  Father  Wilson. 
They  knew  the  poet's  outlook  and  inlook  well.  He  was 
a  delightful,  simple-hearted  soul,  and  spoke  for  a  com 
fortable  little  host  of  his  young  contemporaries,  who 
only  knew  "  the  Gael "  through  their  own  hearts  and 
flowery  fancies  and  a  little  folk-lore.  To  them  "  the 
Gael  "  was  of  piety,  simplicity,  and  reverence  all  compact, 
and,  unlike  the  rest  of  the  children  of  men,  was  superior 
in  all  ages  to  all  the  questionings  and  temptations  of 
human  nature. 

Father  Wilson  grew  grave  again.  "  I  'm  afraid,"  he 
said  wistfully,  "  that  Fainne  an  Lac  is  too  happy  a  'dawn' 
for  our  long-benighted  land.  The  clouds  are  gathering. 
There  are  ominous  rumors  in  the  Seminary.  There 's 
a  fatal  feeling  amongst  the  older  priests  all  round  that 
the  paper  is  telling  the  people  too  much." 

Father  Kenealy,  who  had  been  chatting  with  Elsie, 
turned  round  suddenly.  "  That 's  an  extraordinary  theo 
ry  for  priests  to  entertain,"  he  said  with  a  smile.  "  Telling 
the  people  too  much!  The  objection  seems  to  argue  a 
strange  want  of  faith  on  the  part  of  those  priests." 

Father  Wilson  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  looked  more 
wistful  than  ever.  "  You  know  what  is  said  in  the  Sem 
inary,"  he  answered  in  a  cheerless  way.  "  To  be  sure 
they  seldom  read  the  paper  themselves,  but  they  feel  that 
it  is  injuring  the  prestige  of  the  Church." 


127 

"  Fainne  an  Lae  is  the  best  friend  the  clergy  have  had 
for  a  long  time/'  said  Father  Kenealy.  "  It  shows  them 
the  trend  of  mind  in  Ireland.  If  they  are  as  they  ought 
to  be  they  should  rejoice  to  witness  so  much  mind  apply 
ing  itself  to  the  problems  of  the  nation  and  life.  If  they 
are  not  rejoicing,  but  alarmed  or  distrustful,  well  it  shows 
they  're  in  a  bad  way.,  and  that  they  Ve  got  to  bestir 
themselves  and  put  their  house  in  order.  Thank  goodness 
Irish  mind  is  not  going  to  suppress  itself  or  go  to  sleep 
because  some  timid  parish  priests  or  bishops  are  needlessly 
distressed  about  it." 

A  pained  expression  came  into  Father  Wilson's  eyes. 
He  looked  up  pathetically  to  Father  Kenealy. 

"Ah,"  he  said  plaintively,  "  we  must  take  things  tenderly 
in  Ireland  where  the  faith  is  a  simple  and  sensitive  plant. 
Irish  Catholicism — unfortunately  perhaps — is  essentially 
emotional,  not  intellectual.  We  must  beware  of  the  shock 
of  intellectuality.  The  Christian  at  the  best  of  times  has 
to  make  sacrifices.  His  is  mostly  a  cold  and  joyless  pil 
grimage.  The  Pagans  have  practically  all  the  poetry,  the 
beautiful  art,  and  the  joy  of  life." 

"  So  you  accept,"  said  Fergus,  "  that  sweeping  picture 
of  the  poet: 

Thou  hast  conquered,  O  pale  Galilean, 

The  world  has  grown  gray  with  Thy  breath. 

I  cannot  accept  it.  I  see  nothing  anti-Christian  in  beauty 
and  the  joy  of  life;  and  despite  the  astonishing  timidity 
of  the  parish  priests  of  Meath,  I  believe  that  Catholicism 
has  an  intellectual  basis,  and  that  an  attempt  to  enslave 
or  suppress  mind  is  anti-Christian  as  well  as  futile." 


128  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

"  The  long  and  short  of  it,"  said  Father  Kenealy,  "  is 
that  the  Church  in  Ireland  must  take  a  broad,  healthy, 
and  liberal  view  of  the  problems  of  the  nation  and  the 
individual  mind  and  soul.  She  must  be  something  noble 
and  enlightening,  worthy  of  her  past  and  the  great  minds 
that  molded  it,  worthy  of  her  mission  and  the  divine 
spirit  of  her  Founder.  She  is  a  divine  institution,  and 
she  must  be  true  to  her  divinity.  In  Ireland  she  has  no 
business  to  be  a  garrison  of  England  or  obscurantism, 
or  to  grow  worldly  and  lose  the  old  impassioned  interest 
in  the  problems  of  the  poor.  So  much  for  the  Church. 
As  Fergus  says,  the  priests  and  bishops  are  not  the 
Church.  The  laity  are  part  of  the  Church,  too,  and  it 
does  the  heart  good  to  find  that  they  are  not  going  to 
forget  it,  and  that  they  are  becoming  quite  clear,  also, 
about  their  sacred  duties  to  their  nation." 

The  eyes  of  the  young  teachers  and  the  poet  brightened 
when  Father  Kenealy  began.  They  glowed  as  he  finished. 
Father  Wilson  was  acutely  distressed. 

"  Ireland  is  primitive  and  peculiar,"  he  said,  "  and 
the  older  priests  and  bishops  will  cling  to  the  old  ways. 
They  cannot  abide  or  understand  the  new.  So  a  terrible 
tumult  is  inevitable.  Ah  me !  new  ideas  are  very  appeal 
ing  to  young  hearts  and  minds,  but  'tis  better  to  suppress 
ourselves  and  the  new  ideas  than  to  quarrel  with  bishops." 

At  this  stage  the  dancers  felt  that  they  had  their  fill  of 
the  joy  of  life  in  the  moonlight,  and  the  muster  began  to 
break  up.  The  teachers  and  the  poet  departed  with  them, 
and  Elsie  went  to  the  kitchen  to  aid  Maire  in  the  prepara 
tions  for  supper,  which  were  made  to  the  accompaniment 
of  Sean's  droll  snatches  of  song,  now  livelier  than  ever, 


"  VITA    NOVA        IN    TH£    BOYNE)    VAU<EY  I2Q 

as  the  gaiety  of  the  night  had  tuned  up  his  spirit.  Father 
Wilson  remembered  that  he  had  still  some  of  his  Office 
to  say,  and  midnight  was  approaching,  so  he  retired  to  an 
inner  apartment.  Fergus  and  Father  Kenealy  were  left 
together  in  the  front  room. 

It  was  Father  Kenealy  who  now  became  grave. 

"  The  news  about  Maynooth  is  bad,"  he  said,  in  a  low 
voice,  as  he  turned  to  Fergus. 

"  I  think  you  are  mistaken/'  said  the  latter  cheerfully. 
"  My  last  letter  from  An  t-Athair  O'Muinneog  was  quite 
buoyant  and  confident.  Of  course  'twas  some  few  days 
ago,  but  the  difficulty  cannot  have  deepened." 

"  Our  friends  in  Maynooth  do  not  know  their  danger," 
replied  Father  Kenealy.  "  Inside  the  college  they  are  as 
innocent  and  simple-hearted  as  they  are  high-minded. 
The  bishops  know  a  great  deal  more  than  they  think,  and 
have  laid  their  plans  as  only  the  bishops  can.  They  have 
decided  on  strong  action  —  I  fear  it  will  be  much  too 
strong  for  our  friends.  They  will  have  to  submit  and 
lie  low,  or  face  a  religious  crisis  for  which  neither  they 
nor  the  times  are  really  ripe.  Did  you  hear  that  Father 
Martin  Murray  has  come  over  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Fergus  in  great  surprise.  "  He  was  uneasy 
when  he  wrote  a  few  days  ago,  but  he  had  no  immediate 
intention  of  leaving  London." 

"  Then  he  changed  his  mind  suddenly.  He  is  now  in 
Dublin.  I  had  a  note  from  him  on  the  last  post  tonight 
—  just  before  I  came  out.  He  mentioned  that  he  missed 
you  in  your  office,  and  was  about  to  go  out  to  Dalkey. 
Here  is  his  note.  He  was  too  hurried  to  give  many 
details  —  and,  anyhow,  he  is  very  cautious  in  his  letters 


I3O  THE   PlyOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

though  he  always  writes  or  wires  in  Latin  when  there  's 
trouble  —  but  the  message  shows  acute  distress  of  mind." 

A  good  deal  of  Fergus's  Latin  —  Church  Latin  apart 
—  had  become  dim  and  uncertain.  And  Father  Martin's 
handwriting  was  perplexing  at  the  best.  But  Father 
Kenealy  solved  the  difficulties. 

"  I  must  go  up  to  Dublin  in  the  morning,"  said  Fergus, 
when  the  purport  of  the  letter  had  become  clear.  "  The 
crisis  may  be  upon  us  at  any  moment.  The  days  of  brave 
work  and  high  ideal  were  too  good  to  last." 

"  I  think  it  would  have  been  better  had  our  Maynooth 
friends  left  Immanence  alone  for  the  present,"  said  Father 
Kenealy.  "  Had  they  preached  nationality  to  their  hearts' 
content  the  bishops  would  have  been  slower  to  interfere 
with  them.  Had  they  taken  your  own  advice,  and  declared 
for  a  persistent  and  unflinching  application  of  practical 
Christianity  to  every  phase  and  problem  of  Irish  life, 
they  would  have  been  revolutionary  indeed,  but  impreg 
nable  and  invincible.  And  a  body  of  educated  priests, 
standing  fearlessly  and  passionately  for  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  and  backed  up  by  devoted  laymen,  would  have 
made  a  tremendous  sensation." 

"  Please  God,  it  is  not  too  late  yet/'  said  Fergus. 

Supper  was  now  ready  in  Maire's  kindly  kitchen.  The 
talk  was  turned  from  Maynooth  and  the  expected  crisis 
to  the  more  general  problems  of  Church  and  nation.  The 
glow  and  optimism  of  Father  Kenealy  became  intensified ; 
the  wistfulness  of  Father  Wilson  deepened  at  first,  for 
it  was  hard  to  shake  off  the  gloomy  foreboding  that  strife 
and  clangor  were  at  hand.  But  Fergus  and  Father  Ken 
ealy  rallied  him,  and  the  piquant  banter  of  Elsie  touched 


"  VITA    NOVA"    IN    THE    BOYNE    VAU,£Y  13! 

the  boyish  gaiety  and  humanity  that  still  nestled  in  his 
nature.  He  took  heart  at  length,  and  decided  that  maybe, 
after  all,  the  joy  of  life  was  not  wholly  Pagan  —  he  re 
called  in  a  dim  way  that  a  brave,  broad-minded  early 
Pope  had  revoked  the  edict  against  the  reading  of  the 
"  Pagan  authors/'  and  that  Patrick  himself  had  had  the 
insight  to  see  the  gleam  of  divinity  and  beauty  in  the  lore 
of  the  Celtic  gods  who  had  uplifted  the  souls  of  men  in 
the  natural  ages  before  him.  At  last  he  allowed  himself 
to  glow  in  a  naive  and  diffident  way.  He  felt  ere  supper 
was  over  that  though  thinkers  thought  and  nation-builders 
built,  the  prestige  of  the  Church  might  not  really  suffer, 
whatever  his  everyday  conservative  clerical  associates 
might  prophesy  to  the  contrary.  His  brow  grew  clearer, 
his  eyes  brightened,  and  he  felt  as  happy  as  in  the  artless, 
eager  days  when  he  discoursed  on  art  and  wrote  poetry 
for  the  Columban  League,  within  the  soul-sheltering  walls 
of  Maynooth.  He  was  really  an  artist  at  heart,  a  Greek 
nature  in  a  gentle  Irish  frame,  wrapt  in  clerical  costume. 
His  tragedy  was  one  of  daily  environment.  Among  eager, 
congenial,  and  intellectual  minds,  as  now,  he  breathed 
natural  air  and  really  lived. 

Fergus  and  Elsie  went  with  the  two  sagairt  for  a  part 
of  the  way  along  the  lonely  high  road  to  Baile  na  Boinne. 
Below  them  the  Boyne  Valley  was  as  still  and  solemn  as 
in  the  primeval  moonlight  ere  yet  a  Celtic  colonist,  or 
other  human  pioneer,  had  set  a  foot  in  the  rich,  lone 
region  that  environed  Tara.  Father  Kenealy  paused  on 
a  height  of  the  road,  laid  his  hand  on  Father  Wilson's 
shoulder,  and  then  pointed  to  the  starry  heaven. 

"  There !  "   he    said.      "  It   shows   no   sign   of    falling, 


132  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

despite  the  revolutionary  sentiments  you  have  heard  to 
night.  When  you  look  at  its  order  and  its  mystic  glory, 
don't  you  think  that  the  spectacle  of  your  timid  P.  P.'s 
and  conservative  bishops,  agitated  over  a  little  thought, 
is  ironical  and  preposterous  ?  " 

Here  the  friends  parted. 

"  Oh,  to  think  of  it !  "  said  Elsie,  when  she  and  Fergus 
had  turned  back.  "  It 's  not  yet  twenty-four  hours  since 
I  walked  into  that  office  of  yours.  It 's  more  like  twenty- 
four  years  in  the  way  of  sensations  and  experiences." 

He  put  his  arm  within  hers. 

"  I  've  been  heart-hungry  for  several  hours,"  he  said. 
"  In  all  the  talk  and  glow  I  just  wanted  you  to  myself. 
Some  grand  ideals  were  expressed,  but  all  the  time  I  was 
thinking  how  humble  they  were  compared  with  the  witch 
ery  and  divinity  of  affection.  I  also  thought  what  a 
mystery  affection  is.  It  is  a  wondrous,  ideal,  unworldly 
feeling;  with  something  sacred,  something  starry  about 
it,  yet  what  exquisite  heart-hunger  all  the  time !  I  never 
felt  till  tonight  the  full  force  and  insight  of  the  poet's 
wonderful  lines: 

O    lyric   love,   half   angel   and    half   bird. 
And    all    a   wonder   and   a   wild   desire. 

"  Isn't  it  a  far  cry  from  your  Boyne  Valley  friends,  the 
Birds  of  Angus,  to  Browning?"  said  Elsie. 

"  The  divine  flame  is  eternal,  and  the  words  of  symbol 
ists  and  poets  just  express  in  divers  ways,  from  age  to 
age,  the  human  sense  of  worship  and  rapture  before  the 
shrine ;  yet  nobody  sounds  its  mystery  and  sanctity.  But 
I  know  them  —  when  I  kiss  you.".  , 


"  VITA  NOVA     IN  THE:  BOYNE  vAij,EY  133 

"  I  wonder  if  the  duration  of  kisses  is  an  index  of 
enthusiasm  for  knowledge/'  said  Elsie,  a  playful  gleam 
shining  mischievously  through  her  eyes. 

"  What  a  wickedly  airy  sprite  you  are !  "  he  said ;  "even 
things  so  hallowed  as  kisses  you  cannot  take  seriously." 

"  If  both  of  us  got  too  serious,"  she  replied,  "  we  'd 
never  be  able  to  get  away  from  the  banks  of  the  bewitch 
ing  Boyne." 

"  That  prospect  has  no  terrors  for  me,"  said  Fergus, 
who  had  apparently  overcome  the  questioning  mood  of 
the  early  evening. 

They  went  slowly  back  to  the  old  house. 

When  Elsie  went  to  her  room  Fergus  thought  that 
he  would  write  for  an  hour  or  two.  "  Copy  "  would  be 
needed  for  Fainne  an  Lae  on  the  morrow,  and  after  such 
a  day  there  was  a  revel  of  thought  and  feeling  that  de 
manded  expression.  But  it  was  simply  impossible  to 
complete  anything.  Radiant  vistas  of  thought  and  fancy 
opened,  tides  of  delicate  feeling  flowed  and  flashed,  but 
they  eluded  the  artistic  imprisonment  of  sentences  in  an 
airy  and  bewildering  way  that  in  the  end  brought  a  sense 
of  exhaustion  and  pain.  It  were  as  easy  to  impress  star 
light  into  a  fountain  pen.  Then  the  news  from  Maynooth 
swept  like  a  chill  wind  into  his  idyll-lands  of  reverie. 
He  dozed  off  to  sleep  in  the  end,  and  had  a  tantalizing 
vision  of  bishops  in  a  half-ploughed  field,  and  Elsie  play 
fully  scattering  the  Birds  of  Angus  amongst  them,  while 
a  crowd  of  Maynooth  men  with  spades  and  fiddles  tried 
vainly  to  leap  over  from  the  other  side  of  the  Boyne. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE:  PRIESTS'  STOCKBROKER  WITH  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE 

HE  workers  at  Cluainlumney  were  ear 
ly  risers.  When  Fergus  awoke  next 
morning  songs  from  the  gardens 
reached  his  ears.  There  was  a  deli 
cate  sense  of  freshness  in  the  air, 
and  the  singing  seemed  the  expres 
sion  of  human  joy  thereat.  The  sun 
was  not  yet  high,  and  there  was  a 
subtle  feeling  of  softness  and  charm 
and  mystery  in  the  morning's  radi 
ance.  He  dressed  quickly;  he  knew 
by  this  time  that  to  miss  the  first  magic  of  morning  in 
the  Boyne  Valley  or  Dublin  was  to  lose  an  experience 
for  which  no  sensation  or  happening  of  the  after  day 
could  make  amends.  To  walk  below  by  the  flowing  river 
under  the  greenery,  with  the  hundred  melodies  of  the 
birds  an  exquisite  accompaniment,  was  to  realize  an 
Earthly  Paradise  in  open  actuality  as  well  as  in  the  heart. 
But  there  was  to  be  no  joyous  walk  by  the  river  this 
morning.  He  learned  from  Maire  that  breakfast  was 
nearly  ready,  that  Elsie  would  be  down  in  a  few  minutes, 
and  that  a  messenger  had  just  come  over  with  a  note  from 


THE:  PRIESTS'  STOCKBROKER  135 

Mr.  Milligan,  one  of  whose  country  houses  was  not  far 
away.  He  found  that  the  note  was  brief  and  written  in 
a  somewhat  shaky  hand.  Mr.  Milligan  said  he  heard  the 
previous  night  that  Fergus  was  in  Cluainlumney,  and  he 
would  greatly  like  to  see  him  before  he  returned  to  Dub 
lin.  He  was  not  very  well  otherwise  he  would  walk  over. 

Fergus  now  saw  that  he  would  be  unable  to  start  for 
Dublin  by  the  early  train;  he  must  wait  till  noon.  He 
would  telegraph  to  Maeve  to  meet  him  at  Amiens  Street, 
or  in  the  office.  She  would  know  the  whereabouts  of 
Father  Murray.  Possibly  both  the  latter  and  herself 
could  return  with  him  to  the  Boyne  Valley  on  the  even 
ing  train.  It  would  be  better  than  Dublin  for  all  con 
cerned,  and  Father  Kenealy  would  be  at  hand  to  discuss 
the  crisis.  For  the  present  Maeve  and  Elsie  would  find 
the  Boyne  Valley  more  enjoyable  than  the  capital.  When 
Elsie  appeared,  t  and  he  told  her  of  the  plans,  she  con 
sidered  that  possibly  they  were  the  best  in  the  circum 
stances,  though  she  was  eager  to  see  Maeve  without  delay. 

"  Mr.  Milligan  is  just  the  man  we  want  to  be  hale  and 
well  for  the  next  twenty  years,  if  it 's  God's  will/'  said 
Fergus  as  they  sat  down  to  breakfast.  "  He  's  one  of  the 
very  few  men  in  Ireland  who  understand  the  rural  prob 
lem.  He  's  the  only  one,  apparently,  who,  understanding 
it,  is  able  and  willing  to  bring  ideas  and  money  to  the 
solution  of  it.  He  grasped  it  and  tackled  it  rather  late 
in  life  —  it 's  a  puzzle  to  me  why  it  did  not  come  home  to 
him  earlier  —  but  he  's  done  great  things  since  he  started. 
If  Heaven  spares  him  and  us,  you  '11  see  wonders  yet  in 
the  Boyne  Valley  and  above  it.  A  busy  and  picturesque 
town  of  the  new  order  will  be  visible  from  your  boudoir 


136  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

window  —  for,  of  course,  you  must  have  a  boudoir,  or, 
to  give  it  the  old  Irish  name,  a  grianan  —  before  you  are 
many  years  here." 

"  Be  serious,  Fergus  O'Hagan,  and  tell  me  more  about 
this  magician  of  yours.  Since  I  Ve  seen  your  enchanted 
valley  I  am  twice  as  interested  as  I  was  before." 

"  He  's  no  magician,  for  he  works  with  perfectly  natur 
al  materials,  along  perfectly  natural  lines.  But  he  's  a 
phenomenon,  being  a  rich  Irishman  who  takes  his  own 
country  seriously,  and  spends  his  surplus  wealth  on 
schemes  that  will  enable  its  peasantry  to  uplift  them 
selves." 

"  Where  did  he  get  the  wealth  to  start  with  ?  " 

"  Through  stockbroking.  The  clergy,  by  the  way,  are 
noted  patrons  of  his  firm." 

"  The  clergy  seem  to  crop  up  everywhere  in  this 
puzzling  island,"  she  said.  "  But  in  connexion  with 
stockbroking  they  seem  incongruous.  By  the  way,  was 
not  '  usury,'  or  the  taking  of  interest,  forbidden  by  Ecu 
menical  Councils?  I  must  ask  Lord  Strathbarra,"  she 
added  slyly. 

Fergus  went  to  see  Mr.  Milligan.  He  found  him  on 
a  couch  in  a  luxurious  morning-room  of  his  picturesque 
Meath  home.  He  had  others  —  this  particular  one  had 
been  built  a  generation  before  for  a  British  statesman. 
The  simple  and  courtly  old  man  looked  out  pensively  on 
a  great  stretch  of  sunlit  grass-land.  As  a  picture  it  was 
beautiful  in  the  morning  light;  but  in  these  days  grass 
to  old  Mr.  Milligan  spelt  waste  and  loss  and  loneliness 
and  vanished  people.  He  could  have  wept  over  the  tracts 
where  the  tiller  and  the  toiler  were  not. 


THE:  PRIESTS'  STOCKBROKER  137 

He  greeted  Fergus  cordially,  but  sadly. 

"  I  have  been  greatly  shaken  for  the  past  day  or  two," 
he  said.  "  And  illness  now  worries  me  intensely :  not 
for  itself,  but  because  it  interrupts  the  work  I  so  dearly 
want  to  do.  Ah!  Mr.  O'Hagan,  the  puzzle  of  life  is  a 
baffling  and  a  solemn  one.  It  was  not  till  I  was  an  old 
man  that  I  came  to  see  clearly  the  tragic  conditions  and 
burdens  of  the  Irish  peasantry,  and  to  understand  how 
the  rural  problem  is  to  be  tackled.  And  just  as  I  have 
seriously  tackled  it,  the  fear  comes  upon  me  that  I  may 
be  called  away." 

Fergus  expressed  the  cheery  hope  and  belief  that  Mr. 
Milligan  had  many  hearty  years  of  life  before  him  yet. 

"  God  grant  it.  If  I  am  given  strength  and  life,  all  that 
is  mine  to  give  and  do  will  be  at  the  service  of  the  people. 
And  if  we  can  till  successfully  down  here,  and  solve 
transit  and  market  problems,  and  establish  healthy  fac 
tories  in  pleasant  places,  and  bring  social  and  intellectual 
interests  into  the  lives  of  the  rural  workers  —  why,  it  will 
all  be  a  grand  thing  in  itself,  and  it  will  be  a  shining 
example  to  others  near  and  far,  who  have  the  money  and 
the  opportunities  but  who  somehow  have  never  thought 
of  having  faith  in  Ireland." 

"  It  will  be  glorious,"  said  Fergus.  "  We  had  a  de 
lightful  muster  last  night  at  Cluainlumney,  and  I  thought 
of  it  as  a  glad  little  foretaste  of  the  social  and  intellectual 
life  of  the  workers  in  the  Boyne  Valley  in  the  pleasant 
days  to  be." 

"  How  happy  I  'd  be  if  I  thought  I  'd  live  to  see  it,  or 
even  to  see  the  good  work  well  in  train.  But  I  am  ill, 
Mr.  O'Hagan,  and  there  are  many  thoughts  that  trouble 


138  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

me.  Have  I  any  right  to  the  wealth  I  possess?  Am  I 
expending  more  than  a  fraction  of  it  properly?  Can  I  be 
said  to  have  done  my  duty  with  the  starting  of  a  few 
factories,,  the  re-opening  of  a  long-neglected  canal,  and 
the  breaking  up  of  a  grass  ranch  at  Cluainlumney  ?  It 
seems  much  to  some;  it  is  coming  to  seem  little  to  me. 
First  of  all,  about  my  wealth.  I  started  with  little  or  no 
thing;  I  am  a  self-made  man.  I  began  as  a  stockbroker's 
clerk;  I  went  higher  and  higher  and  eventually  I  was 
possessed  of  a  big  business  and  a  fortune.  Though  I 
had  been  industrious,  and  I  suppose  skilful  in  my  busi 
ness,  it  gradually  dawned  upon  me  in  my  old  age  that 
the  fortune  I  had  made  was  grossly,  wildly  beyond  my 
deserts  and  merits.  Again,  the  clergy  were  very  steady 
clients  of  mine,  in  their  private  capacities,  as  well  as  in 
their  capacities  as  trustees.  Now  it  was  clear  to  me  that 
the  property  in  which  they  thus  dealt  had  come  originally 
from  the  people,  sometimes  the  very  poor  people.  So 
through  the  clergy  ostensibly,  but  in  reality  through  the 
people,  I  was  enabled  to  make  a  large  fortune  as  a  stock 
broker.  It  was  borne  in  upon  me  that  in  one  form  or 
another  I  was  bound  to  make  restitution  to  the  people. 
That  is  why  I  came  to  start  the  factories  and  begin  the 
breaking  up  of  the  grass  lands." 

"  That  is  an  exceedingly  interesting  and  expressive 
statement,"  said  Fergus.  "  I  had  no  idea  of  the  facts 
before." 

"  But  I  have  only  made  a  mere  beginning.  Even  the 
beginning  is  unsatisfactory.  The  tillers  at  Cluainlumney 
are  only  tenants;  I  must  arrange  that  they  get  a  deeper 
and  securer  interest  in  the  holdings,  a  point  which  did 


THE    PRIESTS     STOCKBROKER  139 

not  occur  to  me  at  first.  The  workers  in  the  factory  are 
only  workers,  though  decently  treated  and  paid ;  I  must 
arrange  that  the  concerns  are  placed  upon  a  co-operative 
basis.  But  when  I  have  these  matters  settled  I  shall  still 
be  but  at  the  beginning.  What  about  the  rest  of  what  I 
call  my  property,  landed  and  otherwise?  How  shall  I 
arrange  and  leave  it  that  I  may  be  sure  it  will  be  turned 
to  the  best  service  of  the  nation  when  I  am  gone?  I 
cannot  leave  the  matter  to  chance  or  to  my  own  family's 
decision  and  preferences.  My  sons  are  well-meaning  and 
loyal,  but  they  have  been  used  to  luxury  and  privilege. 
They  had  not  to  fight  the  battle  of  life  as  I  had,  they  do 
not  know  the  people,  and  social  injustice  and  the  circum 
stances  of  the  peasantry  do  not  come  home  to  them  as 
they  do  to  me,  mean  no  more  to  them  than  the  weather 
does.  If  I  give  them  enough  to  start  them  fairly  in  life, 
and  devote  all  the  rest  to  some  profitable  and  productive 
national  purpose  it  will  certainly  be  for  the  best.  I  'd  like 
you  to  help  me  with  suggestions  towards  the  scheme  that 
would  be  most  instructive  and  attractive  as  an  example 
to  others,  and  likely  in  itself  to  benefit  the  greatest  num 
ber  of  poor  men's  children  in  the  present  circumstances 
of  Ireland.  I  've  been  brooding  over  a  scheme,  but  'tis 
very  big,  and  the  details  are  not  clear  yet." 

He  made  a  broad  sketch  of  the  landed  and  other 
property  available,  and  gave  general  details  likely  to  be 
serviceable  or  suggestive  to  Fergus. 

"  There  is  one  thing  more  .1  want  to  tell  you,"  Mr. 
Milligan  continued.  "  It  will  explain  some  of  my  anxiety 
about  the  future.  My  clerical  friends  —  at  any  rate  the 
older  ones  —  are  prophesying  all  sorts  of  woe  and  disaster 


140  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

if  we  continue  our  present  course,  and  more  especially 
if  Fainne  an  Lae  continues  its  independent  and  thought- 
spreading  mission.  They  imagine  they  can  worry  me  out 
of  my  purposes  —  our  clergy  as  a  rule  are  exceedingly 
persistent  and  subtle  in  their  policy.  The  bishop  himself 
has  called  upon  me  to  discuss  it  all,  but  he  has  been  gentle, 
though  showing  alarm  and  pain." 

"  It  is  most  extraordinary,"  declared  Fergus.  "  Surely 
they  should  all  see  how  much  the  Church  stands  to  gain 
by  your  projects,  for  the  end  of  these  is  a  progressive  and 
happy  people  on  the  land  —  a  blessed  contrast  to  the 
present  order:  an  untrained  and  miserable  people,  many 
of  them  emigrating  to  America  or  Britain,  to  be  lost 
eventually  in  hundreds  of  cases  to  Church  as  well  as 
Ireland.  Truly  the  clergy  ought  to  bless  you  personally, 
and  pray  fervently  that  your  example  may  be  widely 
followed." 

"Ah,  but  the  older  clergy,  and  some  of  the  young,  are 
alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  a  strong-minded  laity.  I  am 
drawn  reluctantly  to  the  conclusion  that  they  dislike  all 
character  of  which  they  themselves  have  not  had  the 
molding.  They  have  had  the  virtual  ruling  of  rural  Ire 
land  so  long,  except,  of  course,  in  the  North-east,  that 
they  almost  believe,  if  they  do  not  entirely  believe,  that 
the  continuance  of  the  rule  is  essential  to  Christian 
stability  and  salvation.  They  come  to  me  with  strange 
stories.  They  are  afraid  that  our  new  workers  in  the 
Boyne  Valley  will  not  be  sufficiently  submissive  in  social 
as  well  as  spiritual  matters,  and  they  have  a  nervous 
dread  about  our  paper." 

"  But  do  they  come  down  to   facts  ? "  Fergus  asked. 


THE:  PRIESTS'  STOCKBROKER  I41 

"  Do  they  point  to  any  definite  crime  or  misdemeanor?  " 
"Ah,  Mr.  O'Hagan,  they  are  never  so  direct  and 
reasonable  as  that.  They  try  to  impress  you  with  a  vague, 
dread  sense  that  everything  is  wrong,  everything  in  the 
independent  man's  schemes  and  efforts,  and  that  it  is 
impossible  to  put  things  right  save  by  trusting  implicitly 
in  themselves.  Hints,  indeed,  have  been  thrown  out  that 
stronger  measures  than  mere  remonstrances  will  be  taken 
against  us,  so  I  thought  I  would  warn  you  that  troubled 
times  may  be  at  hand.  As  to  my  tillage  and  factory 
schemes  I  am  anxious  to  put  them  on  such  a  basis  that 
the  workers  will  be  safe  against  clerical  interference. 
That  is  what  I  really  fear  in  the  future.  I  have  been  a 
good  friend  to  the  Church,  and  I  have  a  son  a  Jesuit  and 
a  daughter  a  nun,,  so  I  can  speak  frankly  without  being 
misunderstood." 

"  It  is  pitiful,"  said  Fergus,  "  that  you  should  be  wor 
ried  in  this  way  in  the  midst  of  your  work,  when  in 
reality  you  ought  to  be  most  heartily  encouraged  and 
seconded,  especially  by  the  spiritual  leaders  and  guides 
of  the  people." 

"  I  am  an  old  man  now,  Mr.  O'Hagan,  and  it  does  not 
surprise  me  in  the  least.  It  certainly  shall  not  daunt  me. 
My  great  anxiety  is  that  I  may  not  live  to  complete  the 
work  I  began  too  late.  But  I  was  afraid  that  possibly 
you  might  be  disturbed  and  depressed  by  irrational  oppo 
sition  to  your  good  work.  You  must  be  ready  for  all 
that  in  Ireland,  or  you  can  do  nothing.  Your  reward 
must  be  in  the  work  and  in  yourself,  and  in  your  hopes 
for  the  future.  That  is  the  most  helpful  advice  which 
an  old  man  who  has  seen  much  of  Irish  life  can  give  you." 


142  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

They  chatted  for  some  time  on  points  and  phases  of 
the  Boyne  Valley  work  and  its  development,  Fergus 
noting  with  anxiety  that  Mr.  Milligan  seemed  weak  and 
worn,  though  he  spoke  with  keener  hope  and  energy 
than  ever. 

"  I  remember  when  Meath  was  busy  and  populous," 
he  said  toward  the  close.  "  Tis  terrible  to  think  of  the 
waste  of  the  clearances  and  the  emigration  —  the  loss  in 
men,  in  energy,  in  happiness,  and  in  ideas.  But  if  we 
could  re-people  all  the  rich  wastes,  I  am  afraid  that  with 
out  the  co-operative  idea  in  action  we  could  never  get 
men  under  modern  conditions  and  in  modern  circum 
stances,  to  exert  themselves,  and  put  forth  their  best. 
And  we  must  not  have  workers  who  are  afraid  of  the 
clergy,  otherwise  there  will  be  no  fair  harvest  of  ideas 
and  character.  And  without  these  a  people  perish." 

"  There  are  several  kinds  of  art-workers  and  artisans 
who  might  be  induced  to  come  from  Dublin  to  live  in  the 
Boyne  Valley,"  said  Fergus.  "  They  could  work  more 
naturally  and  interestedly  there,  and  incidentally  they  'd 
sow  the  ideas.  I  Ve  broached  the  project  before.  It  is 
only  one  —  there  are  many  others." 

"Ah,  if  I  were  twenty  years  younger,  or  if  I  could 
count  on  even  five  years  more  of  tolerable  health !  "  said 
Mr.  Milligan  feelingly. 

"  His  insight  is  as  keen  as  his  heart  is  simple.  Heaven 
send  him  many  years  of  life  and  strength.  He  is  indis 
pensable  to  Ireland,"  said  Fergus  to  himself  as  he  re 
turned  to  Cluainlumney. 


CHAPTER  XV 
O'HAGAN  is  INTRODUCED  TO 


HEN  Fergus  left  Elsie  at  Cluain- 
lumney,  after  the  visit  to  Mr. 
Milligan,  and  went  to  catch  the 
mid-day  train  at  Baile  na  Boinne 
for  Dublin,  his  first  feeling  was 
one  of  loneliness,  and  then  he  had 
an  unaccountable  sensation  of  be 
ing  alone  with  a  new  individuality. 
It  was  an  agreeable  and  yet  a 
bewildering  sensation.  It  seemed 
a  rank  absurdity  to  assume  that 

he  had  never  known  himself  before,  and  the  idea  of  a 
man  being  introduced  to  himself  for  the  first  time,  and 
when  the  mid-thirties  of  his  life  had  passed,  was  exquis 
itely  fantastic.  Yet  that  was  how  he  felt,  as  nearly  as 
he  could  express  or  realize  it.  Had  he  been  slumbering 
all  those  years,  and  now  in  some  unfathomable  way  had 
he  suddenly  awakened?  That  solution  would  not  meet 
the  case  at  all;  his  life  had  been  an  active  and  strenu 
ous  one. 

Nor  could  he  explain  the   puzzle   by   saying  that  his 
life  had  been  active  and  resonant  outwardly,  and  that  now 


144  THE  PivOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

the  intellectual  part  of  him  had  come  to  assert  itself. 
The  contrary  was  the  case.  All  his  active  life  had  been 
concerned  with  matters  more  or  less  intellectual;  and 
when  he  was  not  engaged  upon  his  literary  duties  he 
had  been  studying  great  movements,  great  causes,  great 
enthusiasms  manifested  in  history;  and  always  in  his 
vision  he  identified  himself  with,  was  part  of,  was  lost  in, 
an  Ireland  of  a  coming  day  that  would  arise  and  think 
and  create  and  mark  a  momentous  tide  in  the  sea  of 
human  evolution.  Now  all  these  great  movements  and 
their  stories  had  rolled  away  like  clouds,  leaving  him 
alone  with  himself,  as  much  alone  and  as  solitary  as  if 
he  were  the  last  man  in  the  universe,  left  to  unravel  the 
riddle  of  fate  without  help  from  one  of  humankind. 
Even  Ireland  had  become  as  a  dream,  as  a  fading  memory 
of  a  tale  that  was  long  since  told. 

As  he  left  the  Boyne  Valley  and  entered  Baile  na 
Boinne,  he  thought  that  perhaps  in  the  Louvre,  the  Brit 
ish  Museum,  and  elsewhere,  and  in  his  private  studies, 
he  had  dwelt  too  much  upon,  had  been  drawn  too  much 
to,  the  ideals,  the  art,  the  philosophy  of  other  times  and 
men,  and  that  now  in  some  mysterious  way  Nature  had 
thrust  him  back  on  the  realm  of  his  own  mind,  and  made 
him  seriously  see  for  the  first  time  that  that  was  as  mystic 
and  insoluble  and  as  essentially  interesting  an  entity  as 
anything  he  had  been  studying  on  the  great  scale  all  the 
years. 

But  no;  that  solution  would  not  do  either.  He 
had  been  always  individualistic  enough,  at  least  he  had 
thought  so.  He  ought  to  have  known  his  own  mental 
life  by  this  time;  but  this  new  and  extraordinary  mix- 


FERGUS  O'HAGAN  AND  HIMSEI/F  145 

ture  of  awe  and  ecstasy  was  a  discovery  for  which  no 
previous  experiences  had  prepared  him.  As  the  train 
bore  him  past  lonely  fields  of  Meath  he  recalled  conver 
sations  with  Miss  Alice  Lefanu  in  other  years  on  the 
subject  of  personality  and  its  multiplex  character  in  every 
human  being,  though  the  multiplexity  was  never  realized 
by  the  many.  She  had  become  fascinated  by  the  subject, 
on  which  she  had  gathered  a  singular  stock  of  lore.  She 
had  brooded  on  famous  cases  in  which  four  or  more 
personalities  had  manifested  themselves,  or  had  been 
unearthed,  in  the  same  individual.  But  she  carefully 
insisted  on  a  fact  which  was  novel  and  surprising  to  him 
at  that  stage,  running  counter  as  it  did  to  the  average 
psychologist's  theory.  This  was  that  personality  was  to 
a  great  extent  fleeting  or  illusive,  and  really  concerned 
the  lower  forces  of  the  human  character,  beyond  which, 
however,  the  average  human  being  at  this  stage  of  the 
race's  history,  never  rose.  It  was  very  different  from 
Individuality,  in  the  true  sense,  to  which  only  the  few  as 
yet  attained,  or  tried  to  attain.  The  true  Self,  the  Master 
ruling  our  life,  was  ordinarily  little  known  to  the  normal 
consciousness,  and  was  on  a  plane  far  above  our  custom 
ary  desires  and  passions.  The  supreme  exaltations  of 
the  great  characters  in  human  story  meant  that  the  lower 
nature  had  been  shed  or  crucified,  mere  personality  or 
personalities  transcended,  and  the  true  Self,  the  Master 
unknown  to  normal  consciousness,  the  inner  Christos, 
more  or  less  asserted  and  revealed.  All  vivid  enthusiasms 
and  inspirations,  all  subordination  of  the  habitual  human 
entity  to  a  noble  cause,  to  disinterested  service  of  human 
ity,  was  really  a  step  upward  to  that  grander  Self  in 


146  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

each,  that  inner  Christos.  He  had  been  wondering  of 
late  if  this  was  somehow  another  way  of  expressing  that 
Immanence  of  which  Lord  Strathbarra  and  certain  of  his 
Maynooth  friends,  like  An  t-Athair  O'Muinneog,  were  so 
full.  Did  it  not  express  their  idea  of  Revelation?  — 
which  to  them  was  not  statement,  but  spiritual  experience : 
"  the  Divine  which  is  immanent  in  man's  spirit,"  reveal 
ing  to  him  a  vita  nova,  adjusting  itself  to  realities  beyond 
the  course  of  time  and  space,  giving  him  though  still  in 
the  flesh  an  august  and  momentous  sense  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  Fergus  saw  himself  and  existence 
in  a  new  light  today.  A  Self  of  which  he  had  been  but 
dimly  conscious  before  dominated  his  being,  and  sent 
strange  light  flashing  and  delicate  music  playing  in  long 
obscure  avenues  of  consciousness.  A  great  deal  of  his 
previous  life  seemed  now  to  be  mere  obscure  groping; 
but  though  he  felt  it  to  have  been  wasted  and  ineffective, 
there  was  none  of  that  accusing  regret  for  it  with  which 
he  had  been  tormented  of  late  months.  The  newly- 
asserted  Self  seemed  to  know  that  the  end  of  man  is  joy, 
and  that  when  the  great  resurrection  and  assertion  of  the 
individuality,  the  inner  Christos,  comes,  there  is  no  pain 
for  the  past;  the  futilities  and  the  mistakes  are  as 
clouds  that  have  been,  and  now  in  the  clear  sky  are 
not.  It  also  seemed  to  realize  that  suffering  is  not  an 
ultimate  reality,  but  something  incidental  to  the  transition 
to  the  divine,  yet  to  be  prized  in  the  transition  as  a  glori 
ous  privilege. 

He  had  a  curious  feeling  of  anxiety,  to  hurry  back  and 
speak  in  a  new  spirit  to  Elsie.  His  light  and  airy  attitude 


O'HAGAN  AND  HIMSELF  147 

and  discourses  were  poor  tribute,  he  now  understood,  to 
her  delicate  and  exquisite  nature.  Looking  back  on  the 
banter  and  play  of  years,  it  all  seemed  a  trifling  and  un 
gracious  irreverence.  He  was  sure  that  in  reality  it  had 
never  been  such;  he  was  certain  at  heart  that  it  was  not 
so,  but  a  merely  fantastic,  merry-minded  way  in  which 
kinship  of  spirit  and  boundless  appreciation  and  sympathy 
spoke.  But  the  fact  remained  —  he  felt  it  now  with  the 
vividness  of  soul-fact  —  that  Elsie  was  such  a  character 
as  comes  but  once  in  an  aeon  to  earth,  and  the  privilege 
of  such  a  nature's  winsome  confidence  and  affectionate 
trust  should  give  to  life  not  airiness  but  a  serene  and 
reverential  joy.  Now,  as  the  train  sped  on  its  easy  course 
by  the  lovely  Fingal  sea,  the  sense  of  the  sweetness  and 
charm  which  she  wrought  in  his  world  came  upon  him 
like  a  dream  that  'twas  wondrous  to  find  true. 

Never  had  he  felt  so  exquisite  a  sense  of  liberty  as 
today.  Slowly  and  almost  imperceptibly,  after  many 
questionings,  searching  studies,  and  grievous  unrest,  he 
saw  the  simple,  electrifying  truth  that  the  inevitable  way 
to  the  Truth  was  not  by  laborious  gropings  through  the 
libraries  and  the  sciences,  but  just  by  sacrificing  all  the 
minor  desires  and  the  lower  nature,  and  steadily  compel 
ling  what  commonly  passed  for  self  to  give  way  more  and 
more  to  the  Master  Self,  the  Christos,  the  child  of  the 
Divine  in  each. 

That  was  the  sure  way  to  the  heart  of  romance,  the 
source  of  revelation,  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Every 
sedulously  cultivated  higher  nature  —  cultivated  by  pain, 
by  thought,  by  disinterested  human  service,  and  all  else 
that  elevated  and  enkindled  the  inner  vision  —  was  a 


148  THE   PLOUGH    AND    TH^    CROSS 

star  in  communion  with  the  Source  of  all  Light,  an 
instrument  responsive  to  the  harmony  which  the  Lord  of 
the  Music  of  Life  breathed  through  all  the  spheres.  Now 
he  realized  the  full  significance  of  Newman's  saying  that 
the  purpose  of  the  Pope,  the  mission  of  the  Church,  was 
to  help  the  light  which  enlighteneth  every  man. 

Was  it  a  coincidence,  or  more,  that  the  coming  of 
Elsie  O'Kennedy  synchronized  with  this  clear  high  tide 
of  inner  feeling  and  vision?  The  clearer  and  higher  it 
became  the  sweeter  and  the  more  subtle  was  the  appeal 
which  Elsie  made  to  his  imagination.  He  knew  that  cer 
tain  of  the  Fathers  would  prove  that  this  was  simply  a 
deadly  snare  of  Satan,  and  that  even  a  more  human  and 
far-seeing  guide  like  Lacordaire  would  suggest  to  him  to 
beware.  He  felt,  however,  that  the  Fathers  were  one 
sided  in  their  view  of  woman.  He  also  thought  that  the 
woman-saints  of  the  Church  —  and  life  —  were  on  the 
whole  the  more  divine.  When  all  was  said,  anyhow,  he 
would  not  admit  that  Elsie,  or  Maeve,  or  any  of  the  few 
women  he  understood  and  reverenced,  would  fit  into  any 
"  Theory  of  Woman  "  whatsoever. 

When  he  reached  Dublin  the  city  gave  him  an  impres 
sion  of  strangeness  and  newness,  yet  a  certain  remoteness. 
There  was  a  telegram  from  Maeve  at  the  office  saying 
that  she  had  urgent  duties  at  home,  and  without,  to  attend 
to,  and  could  not  possibly  start  for  the  Boyne  Valley  for 
another  day  or  two,  though  she  would  make  a  supreme 
effort  on  the  following  day.  She  thought  Father  Murray 
was  there,  or  on  his  way  there,  or  possibly  in  that  per 
plexing  and  disturbing  place,  Maynooth. 

"  I    might    have    known,"    said    Fergus    to    himself. 


O'HAGAN  AND  IHMSEXI?  149 

"  Hurry  is  the  Eighth  Deadly  Sin  in  Maeve's  theology. 
When  somebody  asks  her  hand  in  marriage  she  will  say 
very  nicely,  casually,  and  deliberately,  '  Oh,  is  that  what 
you  called  about?  Please  give  me  a  little  while  to  think 
before  I  reply  —  ten  years  or  so.' J: 

He  was  astonished  that  there  was  no  message  from 
his  Maynooth  friends.  What  did  the  sudden  silence 
mean? 

He  prepared  "  copy  "  for  the  printers  till  the  foreman 
in  his  shirt-sleeves  came  in  with  the  cheerily  exaggerated 
news  that  they  had  "  tons "  of  it,  and  that  he  might 
make  his  mind  easy.  Then  he  found  that  he  had  time 
to  take  a  cup  of  tea  before  catching  the  last  train  to  Baile 
na  Boinne  —  a  Midland  train  from  the  Broadstone,  which 
towards  the  close  of  the  journey  would  allow  him  a  sight 
of  Tara. 

He  was  disappointed  that  Elsie  did  not  meet  him  at 
Baile  na  Boinne  station,  as  he  expected.  He  had  pic 
tured  a  quiet,  delightful  walk  through  the  Valley  to 
Cluainlumney,  in  the  course  of  which  he  would  talk  as 
he  had  never  talked  before,  and  she  would  wonder  at 
his  new  philosophy.  For  this  had  been  a  day  of  revela 
tion.  But  Elsie  appeared  not,  and  he  must  take  the  Valley 
alone. 

When  he  approached  Cluainlumney  he  saw  Elsie  at 
last.  She  was  strolling  leisurely  across  the  fields  from 
the  new  cottages,  accompanied  by  no  less  a  personage 
than  Lord  Strathbarra.  His  lordship  was  apparently 
talking  with  great  animation. 

When  the  first  dash  of  mingled  feelings  was  over, 
Fergus  O'Hagan,  as  he  walked  slowly  along  the  avenue 


15°  THE    PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

to  the  old  house,  unseen  by  the  others  as  yet,  tried  to 
face  the  crucial  question:  how  his  growing  philosophy 
of  pain  and  renunciations  as  aids  to  the  discovery  and 
enthronement  of  the  diviner  Self  would  stand  him  in 
stead,  or  acquit  itself,  in  regard  to  Elsie.  When  they  met 
near  the  house,  Lord  Strathbarra  beamed,  but  Elsie's 
demeanor  was  astonishingly  unenkindled  and  grave. 
Fergus  felt  a  leaden  feeling  at  his  heart. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
THE   HOUR   OF   THE:   WHITE   FROCK 


BOUT  the  time  that  Fergus  read 
Maeve's  telegram,  that  busy  young 
lady  had  managed  to  take  a  few 
minutes'  rest  from  her  labors.  She 
sat  at  the  little  table  in  the  summer- 
house  in  the  garden  at  Dalkey,  and 
with  her  elbows  on  the  table  and  her 
hands  against  her  cheeks  she  looked 
beyond  her  manuscript-book  and  her 
open  Bossuet  into  the  unknown. 
Today  she  had  translated  six  whole  sentences,  but  she 
had  felt  a  certain  severity  in  Bossuet  and  wondered  if  a 
little  Lacordaire  would  not  be  more  in  harmony  with 
scene  and  spirit.  Then  she  reproved  herself  for  the 
feeling  —  associating  a  great  Churchman  with  severity 
was,  if  not  a  spiritual  lapse,  a  dangerous  leaning  to  tempt 
ation.  She  asked  herself  a  little  sternly  if  it  were  possible 
that  in  some  insidious  way  she  was  becoming  infected  by 
the  spirit  of  the  world.  She  was  not  sure  if  she  had  done 
right  in  donning  the  picturesque  white  frock  which  she 
wore.  She  had  felt  in  doing  so  that  it  was  a  genial  recog 
nition  of  Nature's  afternoon  charm,  and  incidentally  it 
suited  herself  beautifully;  but  there  was,  after  all,  a 


152  THE    PLOUGH    AND    Tlllv    CROSS 

Pagan  flavor  about  both  these  reasons.  They  were  not 
convincing  to  a  clear,  calm  soul  that  wanted  to  keep  to 
the  narrow  way. 

She  had  expected  that  Arthur  O'Mara  would  have 
come  in  the  forenoon,  and  was  disappointed  that  he  had 
not  done  so,  as  she  wanted  to  tell  him  in  a  quiet  way  a 
number  of  things  that  would  do  him  good.  That  young 
man  gave  her  considerable  concern,  though  she  was  not 
quite  sure  whether  sternness  or  gentle  firmness  would  be 
the  more  effective  with  him  in  his  present  irresponsible 
and  unconventional  state  of  mind.  She  was  much  afraid 
that  there  was  a  strain  of  genius  in  his  nature,  and  it  was 
exceedingly  difficult  to  compel  genius  into  a  becoming 
respect  for  the  great  virtues  of  obedience  and  humility. 
Had  he  gone  forward  in  Maynooth  it  would  have  been 
different,  for  although  it  sometimes  proved  troublesome 
the  Church  was  nearly  always  able  to  regulate  and  control 
genius. 

Arthur  O'Mara  appeared  before  Maeve  had  decided 
in  her  own  mind  whether  the  white  frock  after  all  was 
appropriate  and  wise.  She  was  inclined,  however,  to  a 
tolerant  view  of  it,  but  the  unmistakable  look  of  surprise 
and  pleasure  with  which  Arthur  regarded  it  convinced 
her  that  it  was  a  tactical  mistake;  it  would  reduce  the 
effect  of  her  spiritual  counsel  appreciably. 

"  Why,  Maeve,"  said  Arthur,  "  you  are  looking  be 
witching.  You  can't  play  the  proud  Puritan  today." 

"  I  am  not  accustomed  to  playing  parts,"  said  Maeve 
in  her  severest  manner. 

"  Not  consciously,  of  course. ;    but  you  do  not  always 


THE    HOUR   01?   THE    WHITE    FROCK  153 

give  the  grace  and  sweetness  of  your  nature  play,  and 
that  comes  to  the  same  thing.  You  look  yourself  today. 
You  wore  a  white  frock,  by  the  way,  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden." 

Arthur  himself  was  more  dainty  and  less  conventional 
in  his  get-up  than  she  had  seen  him  yet.  His  straw  hat 
was  romantic,  he  wore  a  large  blue  tie,  and  his  waistcoat, 
though  certainly  not  new,  suggested  that  it  had  been 
made  by  an  artist  for  an  artist. 

"  I  had  a  glorious  sleep  at  Howth  last  night,"  he  said. 
"And  the  sight  when  I  woke  at  sunrise  outshone  any 
thing  I  Ve  ever  read  of  in  poetry.  I  understood  what 
Fergus  meant  when  he  said  some  time  ago  that  our  re 
formers  ought  to  live  by  Dublin  Bay  if  they  can,  and  in 
any  case  be  earlier  risers  than  skylarks.  I  said  good-bye 
irrevocably  to  a  conventional  life.  I  felt  so  rapturous 
that  had  you  been  anywhere  within  a  mile  of  me  I  'd  have 
run  over  and  positively  kissed  you.  As  it  was  I  wrote 
a  long  piece  of  poetry." 

"Your  second  thoughts  appear  to  be  occasionally  an 
improvement  on  your  first,"  said  Maeve  frostily. 

"  I  had  great  news  when  I  went  to  the  G.  P.  O.," 
continued  Arthur.  "  Father  sent  a  long  letter  and  some 
dusty  banknotes.  He  thought  I  had  been  badly  treated 
at  Maynooth,  and  he  is  wroth  with  the  clergy  all  round ; 
so  he  is  on  my  side.  As  luck  would  have  it,  he  has  had 
a  stiff  quarrel  with  Father  Brady,  the  new  P.  P.  Father 
Brady  not  only  drove  some  of  his  cattle  on  to  father's 
lands  without  asking  his  permission,  but  he  insisted  on 
driving  more  of  them  on  to  a  piece  of  land  that  father 
had  sub-let  to  a  struggling  neighbor.  Father  says  he  's 


154  '-THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

coming  round  to  the  idea  of  Fainne  an  Lae  about  tillage, 
and  as   for  his   feelings  about  priests  as  graziers " 

"  Good  gracious  !  "  exclaimed  Maeve,  with  cold  passion ; 
"  where  is  this  bitter  criticism  of  the  priests  going  to 
stop?  Is  any  sense  of  loyalty  to  the  Church  of  our 
fathers  to  be  left  in  the  land?  Isn't  it  an  old  custom 
in  parts  of  the  country  to  let  the  priests  have  grass  for 
their  cattle  free  and  welcome?  Isn't  it  another  form 
of  dues?  Why,  then,  attack  the  priests  for  being 
graziers  ?  " 

"  My  dear  little  white-frocked  firebrand,"  said  Arthur, 
"  I  have  as  a  matter  of  fact  attacked  nobody  at  all.  The 
good  priest's  cows  are  welcome  to  their  fill  so  far  as 
I  am  concerned.  I  was  simply  telling  you  of  father's 
feelings " 

"  There  was  a  sneer  in  your  reference  to  '  priests  as 
graziers  '  which  a  good  Catholic  would  be  ashamed  of," 
declared  Maeve. 

"  You  are  more  sensitive  than  the  Church  herself," 
said  Arthur.  "  I  don't  think  that  she  has  any  particular 
liking  for  grass  lands,  whether  they  are  held  by  laic  or 
cleric.  And  I  honestly  think  that  the  clerical  grazier  is 
out  of  date  now.  I  certainly  agree  with  father  that  his 
reverence  ought  to  have  asked  permission,  and  that  he 
should  have  left  the  sub-let  land  alone." 

"  The  parish  priest  knows  better  than  your  father,  and 
even  if  a  P.  P.  appears  to  exceed  his  rights  no  Catholic 
ought  to  mind,  and  certainly  he  should  never  complain 
about  it  to  other  people.  If  priests  overstep  the  mark 
they  will  see  it  soon  or  late  themselves,  and  will  put  things 
to  rights.  The  good  taste  and  religious  feeling  of  their 


THE    HOUR   OF   THK    WHITE    FROCK  155 

parishioners  should  keep  them  from  complaint,  which  is 
as  unseemly  as  noise  in  church." 

"  Fancy  a  girl  who  reads  Bossuet  talking  in  that  strain ! 
Maeve,  you  are  charmingly  absurd." 

"  I  don't  approve  of  the  freedom  which  Bossuet  allows 
himself  on  occasions,"  replied  Maeve.  "  I  am  sure  he 
would  be  different  had  he  lived  and  written  after  the 
Vatican  Council.  Anyhow,  France  is  not  Ireland.  Ire 
land  has  a  unique  tradition  of  obedience  to  the  lightest 
whisper  of  the  Church.  She  has  given  up  the  world 
for  the  sake  of  her  own  soul " 

"  My  dear  Maeve,  your  Church  history  has  been  in 
spired  by  the  Man  in  the  Moon,  and  it  is  not  worth  the 
moonbeams  it  has  been  transmitted  on.  Women  like 
you  are  doing  immense  harm.  Ye  are  an  obstinate, 
unteachable  barrier  in  the  way  of  reform  in  the  Irish 
Church  today " 

"  Reform  in  the  Irish  Church !  "  cried  Maeve,  with 
icy  indignation.  "  O,  please  go  away.  Go  away  at  once ! 
If  you  don't  we  are  going  to  have  a  violent  quarrel." 

Arthur  sat  down  on  her  little  table,  but  she  managed 
before  he  did  so  to  snatch  away  the  Bossuet  and  the 
manuscript-book,  pressing  them  against  her  breast  as  she 
moved  her  chair  back  a  little. 

"  My  dear  Maeve,"  said  Arthur,  "  it  was  entirely  un 
fair  to  put  on  a  nice  white  frock  in  honor  of  my  coming" 
—  her  eyes  answered  freezingly  —  "if  your  heart  and 
temper  are  going  to  be  so  black  as  this.  If  you  '11  just  be 
as  sweet  as  it  is  natural  for  you  to  be,  I  '11  write  home  to 
my  father  telling  him  that  every  field  he  has  ought  to 
be  open  to  a  cow  belonging  to  the  good  P.  P.  I  '11  ask 


156  TllU    PLOUGH    AND    Till-:    CROSS 


him  to  put  up  a  notice  in  each  in  Irish  and  English: 
A  bho  an  tsagairt,  ta  faille  a's  fie  he  romhat  annso  !  "  * 

"  Though  you  left  Maynooth  early  you  brought  out 
one  unpleasant  and  regrettable  characteristic  of  certain 
finished  young  Maynooth  men  —  flippancy.  It  all  speaks 
very  badly  for  the  future.  It  's  very  painful  to  think 
that  some  of  the  curates  of  today  will  be  the  P.  P.'s 
of  tomorrow." 

"  The  flippancy  of  some  young  Maynooth  men," 
Arthur  replied,  with  a  touch  of  passion,  "  has  a  very  sad 
explanation.  It  is  an  attempt  to  laugh  away  the  unnat- 
uralness  in  their  hearts  —  their  death-in-life.  They  dis 
cover  when  it  is  too  late  that  they  are  barred  out  of  Eden. 
The  joy  of  loving  and  marrying  is  denied  them." 

Maeve  flushed  and  rose  regally  from  her  chair. 

"I  —  I  —  didn't  think  you  would  become  blasphem 
ous  and  indecent,"  she  said. 

"  Sit  down  child,"  said  Arthur.  "  You  don't  know 
what  you  are  talking  about.  I  do;  and  so  do  some  of 
the  curates.  You  forget,  like  a  great  many  Irish  people, 
that  clerical  celibacy,  when  all  is  said,  is  just  a  regulation, 
not  an  article  of  faith.  It  may  be  a  glorious  thing  for 
some,  emphatically  it  is  not  so  for  others." 

"  I  did  not  know,"  snapped  Maeve,  "  that  the  vicious 
theories  of  Geoffrey  Mortimer  had  effected  an  entrance 
into  Maynooth." 

"  There  you  are  again  !  "  exclaimed  Arthur.  "  Partly 
through  Maynooth,  and  the  ideas  it  has  spread,  the  Irish 
popular  mind  has  become  poisoned  and  ashamed  on  the 

*  Lit.  :  "  O  priest's  cow  there  are  one-and-twenty  welcomes 
before  you  here  !  " 


THE;  HOUR  OF  THE:  WHITE:  FROCK  157 

subject  of  love  and  marriage.  You  call  it  vicious!  And 
yet  you  and  others  talk  of  getting  back  to  the  Gael! 
You  will  find,  if  you  do  not  wilfully  close  your  mind  to 
facts,  that  the  old  Gael  entertained  no  such  sickly  and 
dehumanizing  theories.  He  understood  the  naturalness 
and  the  sanctity  of  love  —  mind  you,  I  don't  say  passion." 

"  Do  you  mean,  then,"  asked  Maeve,  trying  hard  to 
put  the  question  with  a  cold  calmness,  "  that  the  priests 
should  marry?  " 

"  Many  of  them  might  not  desire  to  do  so.  Those 
who  wish  to  do  so  should  be  permitted  to  marry.  Or 
there  could  be  an  Order  of  married  priests,  through  which 
the  Church  would  stand  to  gain  immensely,  for  she 
would  secure  a  band  of  consecrated  workers,  of  high 
ideals  and  broad  sympathies,  who  are  now  scared  away 
by  celibacy.  In  the  Greek  Catholic  Church,  which  is 
older  than  our  own,  the  priests  can  marry  once.  In  our 
Church  the  enforcement  of  clerical  celibacy  was  very 
gradual,  and  was  strongly  opposed  for  centuries." 

"  I  don't  want  to  hear  anything  about  Church  history," 
said  Maeve  icily ;  "  it  is  only  appealed  to  by  people  who 
want  to  show  us  that  the  Church  has  made  what  they 
consider  mistakes." 

"  Churchmen,  not  the  Church.  But  we  won't  discuss 
theology  any  longer.  It  gives  you  a  fiery  and  furious 
temper  astonishing  to  anyone  who  knows  your  natural 
sweetness "  Maeve  bowed  with  facetious  solemnity. 

"Anyhow  I  'm  out  of  Maynooth,"  continued  Arthur, 
"  though  I  hope  to  do  missionary  work  all  the  same." 

"  Indeed !  "  said  Maeve,  ironically.     "  Considering  the 


158  THE:    PLOUGH     AND    THE    CROSS 

sentiments  you  entertain  your  '  missionary  work '  should 
be  rather  original." 

"  We  want  a  lay  apostolate,"  said  Arthur ;  "  not  one 
overbound  by  rules  and  likely  to  grow  formalized  and 
sapless,  but  one  inspired  by  a  common  spirit,  while  leaving 
the  individual  free  and  joyous.  We  want  young  men 
who  will  preach  and  illustrate  the  joy  of  life,  and  who 
will  contemn  convention,  caste  and  formalism;  young 
men  who  will  forswear  luxuries  and  cramping  houses 
and  money-grabbing  businesses;  who  will  give  them 
selves  to  the  wild  and  delicate  joys  of  camping  out,  and 
manly  sport  and  courtship,  and  poetry,  and  art,  and  daring 
thought ;  who  will  do  just  enough  work  of  some  natural 
kind,  whether  book-binding  or  stage-playing  amongst  the 
people,  or  fiddling  or  novel-writing,  to  keep  body  and 
soul  together,  and  give  all  the  rest  of  their  time  and  en 
ergy  to  romance  and  joy.  In  short,  we  want  a  new  order 
of  intellectual  and  romantic  outlaws  who  will  scorn  the 
lying  and  huckstering  thing  that  is  nicknamed  'civiliza 
tion,'  and  who  will  touch  and  stir  what  is  still  unspoiled 
in  the  heart  and  imagination  of  our  race." 

"  It  sounds  very  dashing  and  romantic,"  said  Maeve 
smiling,  "  but  you  spoke  of  courtship,  and  I  imagine 
that  the  life  you  picture  would  prove  rather  trying  on 
your  women-folk." 

"  We  'd  only  woo  and  marry  brave,  gladsome,  golden- 
hearted  girls  who  'd  love  the  wild  and  the  starlight  and 
the  wind  on  the  heath  like  ourselves.  There  must  be 
many  girls  with  such  hearts  still  amongst  the  Gael. 
The  blood  of  Emer  and  Deirdre  cannot  be  spent  yet, 
only  a  little  chilled.  Why,  you  are  really  most  romantic 


THE:  HOUR  OF  THE:  WHITE:  FROCK  159 

yourself,  and  would  respond  delightfully  to  a  lover's 
tenderness.  Only  you  would  size  and  test  him  very  se 
verely  for  a  long  time,  and  only  melt  when  you  were 
sure  he  was  the  lover  who  would  love  for  ever.  Then 
you  would  be  divine.  Well,  some  day  you  will  be  with 
me  in  a  heath-floored  home  on  Howth." 

He  quietly  bent  forward,  put  his  right  arm  round 
Maeve's  neck  and  kissed  her  softly  on  the  lips. 

Crude  displays  of  feeling  were  repugnant  to  Maeve. 
The  art  of  being  angry  with  dignity  may  have  been 
given  to  her  by  Nature,  but  she  certainly  cultivated  it 
sedulously  till  at  the  dawn  of  womanhood  her  displeasure 
was  like  a  cold  but  deadly  flame.  She  had  tried  it  with 
crushing  effect  upon  the  hapless  young  curates  in  whom 
she  detected  an  unbecoming  frivolity.  But  a  young  man 
who  presumed  to  kiss  her  raised  a  new  problem,  some 
thing  far  more  subtle  than  the  harmless  mental  play  of  a 
curate.  She  swiftly  tried  to  concentrate  her  wits  on 
some  scathing  way  of  meeting  the  new  situation  without 
giving  vent  to  the  crude  indignation  of  mere  impulsive 
people.  In  this  she  lost  but  a  small  fraction  of  time  — 
large  enough,  however,  to  allow  Arthur  to  follow  up  the 
first  adventure  by  a  kiss  still  more  eager  and  by  a  third 
of  insinuating  delicacy.  The  problem  for  Maeve  was 
by  this  time,  short  as  it  was,  complicated ;  for  something 
in  her  severely  controlled  nature  rebelled,  and  putting 
aside  conviction,  acknowledged  in  kisses  a  certain  interest 
as  studies.  Then  to  the  bewilderment  and  amazement 
of  reason  she  was  conscious  of  a  wave  of  emotion  in 
which  kisses  seemed  a  joyous  rite  and  love  a  mysterious 
exaltation  of  the  whole  being.  It  lasted  only  a  few 


160  THE:   PLOUGH   AND  THE;   CROSS 

moments,  but  it  seemed  undated  ages;  nay,  it  outsoared 
time.  Then  in  a  vivid  flash  came  the  memory  and  sig 
nificance  of  the  ecstasies  and  visions  of  many  days  and 
nights,  the  momentous  and  incommunicable  moods  of  the 
soul,  the  realization  of  forces  and  presences  behind  the 
veil  of  sense.  She  shivered,  and  her  eyes  suffused  with 
tears.  Whereat  Arthur  drew  back  shocked  at  his  boldness. 

He  caught  her  hand  in  a  timid,  nervous  way. 

"  Don't  be  angry,  Maeve,"  he  pleaded,  "  or  I  '11  run 
away  and  leap  into  the  sea.  Sometimes  my  brain  feels 
like  bursting  and  scattering  on  all  sides  in  a  hundred 
fiery  tangents.  But  when  I  think  of  you  so  beautiful  and 
sweet  I  grow  quite  collected  and  uplifted,  and  could  sing 
like  a  skylark.  I  want  you  to  be  a  shrine,  not  an  accusing 
spirit." 

Maeve  stood  up.  He  had  a  confused  idea  that  thun 
derbolts  were  about  to  be  hurled  at  him. 

"  You  give  me  an  ominous  idea  of  my  responsibility," 
she  said.  "  I  think  you  had  better  come  in,  and  I  '11  give 
you  some  tea.  You  are  getting  feverish,  and  tea  on  a 
hot  day  has  a  curiously  cooling  effect." 

She  led  the  way  in  her  calm  and  daintily  regal  style  to 
the  house,  Arthur  feeling  partly  like  a  sheep  —  he  thought 
—  and  partly  like  a  being  who  has  had  a  sudden  vision 
of  wonderland. 

At  the  same  time  beneath  her  mask  of  serenity  Maeve's 
mind  realized  unflinchingly  that  when  left  alone  the 
severe  court  of  her  inner  nature  would  have  acute  ques 
tions  to  review  and  settle.  Apart  from  this  she  was 
tantalized  by  the  mundane  query :  "  Was  it  the  white 
frock  that  did  it?" 


CHAPTER  XVII 


A   COUNCIL,  AT   CLUAINLUMNEY 


HILE  Fergus  O'Hagan  was  trying 
to  solve  the  puzzle  of  Elsie's 
astonishingly  chilled  and  grave 
demeanor,  Sean  O'Carroll  came 
out  from  the  house.  He  told 
Fergus  in  Irish  that  a  letter  and 
a  telegram  had  come  for  him 
during  his  absence.  The  style  in 
which  he  sounded  a  guttural  and 
the  slender  vowels  delighted  Lord 
Strathbarra,  who  declared  that  he 

had  heard  nothing  like  it  in  Donegal  or  the  West.  He 
was  an  enthusiast  for  subtle  points  of  phonetics.  He 
engaged  Sean  in  an  animated  conversation,  looking  as 
charmed  as  if  Sean  were  the  authentic,  traditional  Gael, 
on  whose  quest  he  had  left  the  Hebrides  time  and  again, 
and  whom  he  discovered  in  Royal  Meath  at  last.  He  sat 
down  with  Sean  under  the  drooping-ash  and  proceeded 
with  his  questions  and  comparisons  as  eagerly  as  if 
fuaimeanna  had  some  subtle  relation  to  the  soul-struggle 
of  the  age.  When  Fergus  urged  him  to  come  in  and 
take  some  tea  he  postponed  the  pleasure,  declaring  in 


1 62  THE:   PLOUGH   AND  THE:   CROSS 

his  musical  Gaelic  that  even  now  he  was  in  the  act  of 
partaking  of  a  feast  that  did  his  heart  good. 

Fergus  found  that  the  telegram  was  from  Father 
Murray.  He,  with  his  friend,  Mr.  Carton,  was  on  a 
visit  at  the  country  house  of  Mr.  Wightman,  then  coming 
into  prominence  as  a  Catholic  and  National  leader  — 
though  his  leading,  the  irreverent  said,  was  invariably 
backwards  to  the  Middle  Ages.  Mr.  Wightman's 
country  home  was  in  the  Kells  district,  comparatively 
close  at  hand.  Father  Murray's  message  was  to  the 
effect  that  he  and  Mr.  Carton  would  drive  over  that 
evening  to  Cluainlumney,  also  that  the  news  from  "  the 
seat  of  trouble "  was  confusing.  Here  was  promise, 
truly,  of  a  vivid  night  —  if  only  Elsie  were  herself ! 

The  letter  was  a  hurried  one  from  his  chief  friend  in 
Maynooth.  He  thought  it  best,  he  said,  in  these  deli 
cate  and  anxious  days  not  to  send  it  to  the  office.  It 
would  be  well  for  the  present  to  be  specially  careful 
about  the  references  to  Maynooth  in  Fainne  an  Lae. 
It  might  even  be  well  to  suggest  editorially  that  it  was 
anything  but  abreast  of  advanced  Catholic  thought  — 
which  was  perfectly  true,  speaking  generally  —  that  in 
fact  it  was  reactionary  compared  with  Continental  cen 
ters.  The  blessed  word  "  obscurantist,"  which  never 
hurt  anybody,  and  had  a  soothing  and  comforting  ring 
in  the  ears  of  bishops,  might  be  hurled  at  it  again  and 
again.  One  of  his  friends  had  written  a  severe  article 
on  these  lines,  which  he  enclosed.  It  said  that  while 
Immanence,  etc.,  promised  to  bring  new  life  and  vigor 
into  the  Catholic  world,  and  had  already  proved  an  ex- 


A    COUNCIIv    AT    CUJAINUJMNEY  163 

alting  and  reconciling  influence  in  great  centers  of 
Europe,  Maynooth  sent  Ireland  no  message  in  regard  to 
it ;  in  fact,  Maynooth  was  asleep  so  far  as  it  was 
concerned  and  in  its  waking  hours  was  content  with 
the  old  ways  —  which  again  was  true,  speaking  generally. 
This  would  tend  to  throw  their  lordships  off  the  track, 
and  it  might  be  followed  up  by  other  and  stronger 
articles.  They  wanted  to  avert  an  immediate  crisis. 
If  a  crisis  was  forced,  one  outcome,  it  was  feared, 

would    be    the    suppression    of .      They    had    been 

greatly  impressed  by  Father  Murray's  philosophic  coun 
cil  and  caution.  Anyhow,  they  were  not  ready  for  an 
open  struggle,  and  some  could  not  make  up  their  minds 
as  to  where  Immanentism  would  lead  them.  Sufficient 
for  the  day  was  the  grand  new  spiritual  consciousness 
that  had  been  stirred,  the  spacious  new  vista  which  had 
been  opened.  Soon  or  late  it  would  affect  the  whole  Irish 
Church.  The  bishops  though  alarmed  were  apparently 
desirous  not  to  force  trouble  into  the  open;  they,  too, 
wisely  realized  —  so  far  as  one  could  presume  to  say 
what  was  really  in  their  lordships'  minds  —  that  any 
public  clash  on  these  issues,  never  openly  broached  so 
far  in  Ireland,  would  be  dangerous,  whoever  triumphed. 
Even  in  the  investigations  so  far  they  allowed  it  to  be 
understood  that  they  were  mainly  concerned  with  a  pro 
nounced  and  restless  spirit  of  nationality.  They  were 
none  too  anxious  to  admit  too  openly  the  idea  of  a 
religious  crisis  in  the  background.  But  there  was  no 
knowing  how  and  where  their  lordships  would  strike  if 
the  issue  became  serious.  There  were  various  dangers. 


164  THIS    PLOUGH    AND    TH£    CROSS 

Lord  Strathbarra  with  his  logical  and  candid  intellect- 
ualism  might  move  too  fast  and  bring  terrible  com 
plications.  Their  latest  news  was  to  the  effect  that  he 
was  in  most  militant  mood.  If  only  he  could  be 
temporarily  distracted  by  some  new  interest,  say  a  Gaelic 
League  internal  trouble  or  an  affair  of  the  heart  (Fergus 
smiled  a  little  grimly)  !  Even  their  apostolic-minded 
friend,  Father  Murray,  with  his  liberal  philosophy,  his 
deep  idealism,  and  his  brave  and  simple  Christian  spirit, 
was  so  far  in  advance  of  Irish  thought  and  circumstances 
that  he  also  —  but  in  perfect  innocence  of  heart,  and 
not  realizing  the  primitive  and  suspicious  order  that 
still  obtained  in  Ireland,  of  which  he  took  the  language 
movement  as  typical  —  might  easily  be  too  advanced 
and  outspoken  for  his  day.  Pioneers  in  Ireland  were 
apt  to  trust  too  much  to  great  thoughts  and  too  little 
to  spade-work. 

Meanwhile,  the  professor  said,  he  had  made  consider 
able  progress  with  a  pamphlet,  to  be  published  quickly, 
entitled  "  Has  Hell-fire  Served  Its  Purpose  ?  and  What 
Has  the  Church  in  Reality  to  Say  to  It?"  The  idea 
had  been  long  in  his  mind,  and  Fergus's  reference  to  the 
project -of  his  friend  Miss  Lefanu  had  set  him  working 
again.  The  pamphlet  would  probably  occasion  a  sen 
sation  in  certain  quarters.  The  introduction  was  ready. 
Would  it  be  well  to  try  it  in  Fainne  an  Lae  as  an  experi 
ment,  a  test  of  the  time-spirit? 

Fergus  had  only  just  finished  the  reading  of  the  letter 
when  Father  Kenealy  and  Father  Wilson  arrived  from 
the  Seminary.  Lord  Strathbarra' s  enthusiasm  for  phon- 


A    COUNCIL    AT    CLUAINLUMNEY  165 

etics  was  suddenly  satisfied,  or  rather  it  gave  way  to  the 
more  compelling  desire  to  resume  the  discussion  of 
philosophy  and  nationality  with  the  former,  whom  he 
had  already  met  several  times  at  feiseanna  of  the  Gaelic 
League,  and  whom,  he  said,  he  had  marked  out  for  a 
special  place  in  the  Hebridean  colony,  the  Church 
authorities  in  Ireland  being  sure  to  suppress  a  man  of 
his  high  talents  and  courage  soon  or  late.  Father  Wilson 
sustained  a  shock  at  once  unpleasant  and  pleasant  — 
unpleasant  at  encountering  for  the  first  time  one  whose 
fearful  fame  had  long  since  penetrated  to  the  Seminary; 
pleasant  on  discovering  that  this  formidable  foe  of  ultra- 
montanism,  the  temporal  power,  and  other  things  making 
for  the  prestige  of  the  Church,  seemed  so  refined  and 
gentle.  On  reflection  he  saw  that  the  refinement  and 
gentleness  were  a  grievous  misfortune.  They  would 
surely  delude  innocent  souls  into  a  respect  for  their 
possessor's  un-Papal  and  anti-theocratic  opinions ! 

After  the  introduction  it  was  his  fate  to  be  left  to  chat 
with  Lord  Strathbarra  beside  the  drooping-ash,  as  it 
chanced  that  Fergus  and  Father  Kenealy  became  en 
gaged  in  conversation  a  few  yards  away.  Father  Wilson 
felt  sorely  embarrassed.  To  what  theme  would  he  turn 
the  conversation  so  that  he  might  not  hear  things  which 
would  be  piis  auribus  offensive,,  if  not  positively  her 
etical  ? 

In  his  perplexity  he  looked  skyward  and  caught  the 
modest  twinkle  of  an  early  star.  His  heart  rose.  The 
sky  was  surely  a  safe  subject.  The  sky  was  beyond 
human  controversy. 


1 66  THE  PLOUGH  AND  THE:   CROSS 

He  gently  drew  Lord  Strathbarra's  attention  to  the 
star. 

"  I  find  few  things  so  fascinating  as  the  watching  of 
the  stars  and  planets/'  he  said.  "  But  I  don't  know 
Mars  from  Orion.  I  've  always  thought  the  human  nick 
naming  of  the  heavenly  bodies  a  petty  and  pretentious 
absurdity.  I  love  to  take  the  celestial  picture  in  all  its 
unlabelled  glory  and  mystery." 

"  Man  has  played  poor  pranks  with  the  firmament," 
declared  Lord  Strathbarra  promptly.  "  The  worst  of 
fenders,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  were  those  theologians  who 
stepped  out  of  their  proper  sphere  and  tried  to  make 
the  world  believe  that  the  heavenly  bodies  moved  round 
this  humble  earth  of  ours  in  meek  and  respectful  at 
tendance  upon  it." 

Father  Wilson's  heart  failed.  He  had  thought  him 
self  safe  with  the  solemn  sky,  and  lo!  this  gentle  and 
terrible  personage  had  pressed  the  whole  firmament  into 
his  dangerous  service  at  once. 

Happily  Father  Murray  and  Mr.  Carton  arrived  at 
this  stage  from  Kells,  and  events  and  minds  took  a  new 
turn  straight  away. 

The  newcomers  and  the  others  had  scarcely  entered 
the  house  when  the  strains  of  lively  music  rose  from  the 
direction  of  the  new  cottages. 

'  That  music,  like  everything  those  new  homes  re 
present,  does  the  heart  good,"  said  Father  Murray,  his 
kindly  face  beaming.  "  So  long  as  the  people  love  good 
music,  simple  or  complex,  their  social  and  intellectual,  as 
well  as  their  spiritual,  salvation  is  possible.  One  of  the 


A    COUNCIIy    AT    CUJAINIvUMNKY  167 

happiest  features  of  the  new  Ireland  is  the  musical  sense 
that  is  stirring  along  with  the  language  revival ;  one  of 
the  saddest  features  of  the  old  Ireland,  so  conservative 
and  short-sighted,  is  the  neglect  by  responsible  ecclesias 
tics  of  the  great  musical  traditions  of  the  Church." 

Fergus  had  been  wondering  how  soon  a  Church  ques 
tion  would  be  introduced,  and  whether  Father  Murray  or 
Lord  Strathbarra  —  old  personal  friends,  whose  debates 
on  philosophical  and  historical  issues  were  beyond  count 
—  would  be  the  first  to  introduce  it. 

Father  Wilson  thought  he  saw  a  happy  opportunity. 

"  The  Church  in  Ireland  is  too  poor  to  be  artistic  on  the 
grand  scale,"  he  said.  "  She  has  not  the  generous  patrons 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  our  friend  Mr.  Carton,  by  his 
munificent  ideas  of  choir  endowment  has  made  history. 
He  has  turned  the  imagination  of  gentle  and  simple,  laic 
and  cleric,  to  the  spacious  importance  of  Church  music. 
His  thought  is  golden  in  more  ways  than  one." 

Mr.  Carton's  plump,  shaded,  good-natured  face  was 
already  bent  over  the  table  in  profound  reverie.  He 
started,  shook  his  shoulders,  and  looked  at  the  company 
in  a  sad  way.  One  thought  of  the  Dormouse  in  Alice  in 
Wonderland. 

"  Palestrina  choirs,  indeed !  "  he  said  with  a  deep  groan. 
"  I  begin  to  think  that  singing  at  the  plough  might  do 
them  a  lot  more  good." 

"What!  On  Sundays!  Oh,  Mr.  Carton,  Mr.  Car 
ton  !  "  cried  Father  Wilson ;  but  Mr.  Carton  had  already 
returned  to  his  reverie. 

"  It  has  been  irreverently  suggested,"  Lord  Strathbarra 
said,  "  that  our  friend  Carton's  endowment  of  Church 


168  THE  PLOUGH   AND  THE:   CROSS 

choirs  is  to  soothe  the  minds  of  the  congregations  so  that 
they  may  be  able  to  endure  the  sort  of  sermons  they 
habitually  get;  that,  in  fact,  it  is  an  expensive,  Swift- 
esque  form  of  anti-clericalism." 

Mr.  Carton  started  from  his  reverie,  as  everybody, 
except  Father  Wilson,  laughed.  His  eyes  twinkled  dimly 
through  his  glasses,  though  his  features  as  a  whole  re 
mained  gloomy. 

"  Everything  in  Ireland  is  topsy-turvy  and  queer,"  he 
said,  "  and  the  sermons  are  the  queerest  and  topsy-turviest 
of  all." 

And  then  with  his  hands  on  his  ears  he  went  back  to 
his  reverie. 

"  Our  friend  Mr.  Carton  is  nearly  right,"  said  Father 
Murray.  "  Irish  sermons  are  the  queerest  things  in  Ire 
land,  with  one  exception  —  the  clerical  pronunciation  of 
Latin.  Its  fame  has  gone  over  Europe,  and  there  are 
said  to  be  moments  when  the  thought  of  it  lightens  the 
mighty  burden  of  Rome  itself." 

Father  Wilson  would  have  enjoyed  this  sally  had  no 
laymen  been  present.  As  things  stood  he  thought  it  best 
to  get  back  to  music  again.  He  said  it  was  significant 
how  every  evening  after  toil  the  Cluainlumney  workers 
seemed  to  turn  instinctively  to  music,  while  during  their 
work  they  sang.  Was  there  some  subtle  connexion  be 
tween  life  on  the  land  and  harmony? 

"  I  think  it  means  that  life  on  the  land  is  natural,  and 
that  once  you  give  the  people  sweet  and  healthy  lives  and 
fair  play,  they  will  find  their  own  joys  and  express  their 
sense  of  life  and  enjoyment  in  their  own  way,"  Father 
Murray  said.  "  If  you  made  and  regulated  their  joys 


A    COUNCIL    AT    CIvUAINLUMN^Y  169 

and  amusements  for  them  they  would  find  even  joy  — 
dictated  joy  —  an  irksome  tyranny.  That  is  the  weak 
point  of  Socialism.  It  proposes  to  do  too  much  for  hu 
manity.  And  the  Church,  which  could  really  do  much 
more,  in  a  deeper  way,  is  proposing  or  promising  little 
or  nothing  in  Ireland." 

"  I  think,"  said  Fergus,  "  that  Socialism  simply  pro 
poses  to  take  the  fetters  off  the  worker's  feet,  the  load 
off  his  back,  give  him  the  means  of  subsistence  and  the 
opportunity  of  development,  and  let  him  develop  and 
flourish  to  his  heart's  content  —  and  his  soul's.  It  really 
only  proposes  to  clear  the  ground  for  the  nobler  forms 
of  individualism,  which  by  their  very  nobility  would  be 
co-operative." 

"  We  must  not  judge  Socialism,"  Father  Kenealy  said, 
"  by  some  early  and  crude  pronouncements  of  individual 
Socialists  in  places  half-dehumanized  by  competitive  and 
unsparing  industrialism.  Our  own  religion  is  Socialistic ; 
our  Church  system  is  largely  ecclesiastical  Socialism. 
When  we  say  the  Lord's  Prayer  we  pray  collectively  and 
socialistically :  '  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread,'  and 
so  on.  Nobody  says,  '  Give  me  my  daily  bread  '  —  and 
let  others  starve.  Our  Lord's  parables  of  the  '  Kingdom  ' 
are  in  essence  Socialism.  So  are  other  things  which  we 
are  told  the  common  people  heard  gladly." 

"  I  am  not  a  Socialist  in  the  ordinarily  accepted  sense," 
said  Lord  Strathbarra,  "  but  I  have  a  rooted  objection  to 
Rome,  or  any  body  of  ecclesiastics,  laying  it  down  that 
I  must  not  be  a  Socialist.  It  is  no  part  of  their  mission 
to  control  or  interfere  with  my  ideas  on  economics.  Their 
Master  taught  no  economics.  Their  mission  is  to  hold 


170  THE  PLOUGH   AND  THE  CROSS 

fast  to  His  spirit  in  the  world,,  to  administer  the  sacra 
ments  to  help  the  individual  conscience,  to  aid  the  individ 
ual  soul  to  uplift  itself,  and  in  the  social  order  to  intensify 
the  sense  of  brotherhood.  They  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  State  as  such.  If  the  people  think  it  well  to  national 
ize  the  land,  and  the  means  of  production  and  distribution, 
it  is  preposterous  to  suggest  that  the  Church  has  any 
mandate  to  say  them  nay.  These  things  are  temporal 
and  temporary;  another  age  may  discover  something 
much  better  than  nationalization  or  co-operative  industry. 
The  business  of  Church  and  Churchmen  is  not  with  the 
temporary,  but  with  that  part  of  the  eternal  which  we 
call  the  soul." 

Mr.  Carton,  who  had  been  silent  as  the  tomb,  took  his 
hands  off  his  ears,  looked  up  suddenly,  and  said : 

"  Churchmen  declare  they  have  a  mandate  to  interfere 
with  you  in  everything,  and  if  you  don't  believe  them 
you  know  where  you  go " 

Mr.  Carton  put  all  the  sense  of  terror  he  could  into  the 
last  clause,  and  hurriedly  returned  to  his  reverie,  as  if 
to  escape  from  the  thought. 

"  Churchmen  in  Ireland  undoubtedly  claim  too  much," 
said  Father  Kenealy ;  "  they  claim  much  that  is  both 
unreasonable  and  impracticable.  In  education  they  simply 
do  not  know  where  to  stop.  A  Seminary  professor  myself, 
I  can  say  without  the  suspicion  of  envy  or  prejudice 
that  they  have  far  too  much  of  Irish  secondary  teaching 
in  their  hands,  and  that  their  grip  of  the  lay  teacher  in  the 
primary  system  is  not  alone  tyrannical,  but  disastrous  to 
character  and  the  cause  of  true  education." 

"  One  of  your  western  bishops  admitted  to  friends  in 


A    COUNCIL    AT    CLUAINUJMNKY  171 

his  pre-episcopal  Maynooth  days,"  said  Lord  Strathbarra, 
"  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  Frank  Hugh's 
book,  The  Ruin  of  Education  in  Ireland.  What  a  pity 
he  does  not  speak  out  from  his  more  exalted  station  now. 
The  book  is  no  less  true  because  the  good  Doctor  has 
been  made  a  bishop." 

Mr.  Carton  again  looked  up  suddenly. 

"  No  one  in  this  country/'  he  said,  "  speaks  out  the  full 
truth  that  is  in  him.  He  fears  it  might  hurt  somebody, 
or  maybe  catch  cold  if  it  were  let  out." 

Whereat  Mr.  Carton  buried  his  face  in  his  hands. 

"  I  'm  thinking  of  suggesting  in  Painne  an  Lae  that  we 
have  a  Candor  Week  once  a  year,"  said  Fergus,  "  a  week 
in  which  it  would  be  recognized  that  nobody  would  suffer 
for  plain  speaking.  The  first  such  Candor  Week  we 
could  devote  to  education  questions." 

"  Nothing  ye  can  say  about  Churchmen  and  the  control 
and  character  of  education  in  Ireland  will  be  too  strong 
for  me,"  declared  Father  Murray.  "  It  annoys  and  dis 
tresses  me  as  much  as  the  weak,  sentimental  sermons  that 
ignore  the  whole  philosophic  basis  of  Catholicism,  the 
childish,  quasi-pietistic  pages  that  do  duty  amongst  us 
here  for  Catholic  '  literature/  and  the  manufacture  and 
melodrama  that  pass  with  so  many  of  our  priests  for 
'  art.'  To  Fergus  and  Mr.  Carton  I  Ve  admitted  all  these 
things  a  hundred  times.  Most  of  the  Irish  priests  are 
living  on  the  past,  and  are  afraid  both  of  the  present 
and  the'  future.  But  dwelling  on  their  deficiences  is  un 
pleasant,  and  is  poor  consolation.  We  must  try  to  bring 
them  to  a  sense  of  the  glorious  mission  and  possibilities 
of  the  Church,  till  her  philosophy,  her  spirit,  her  ceremo- 


172  THE  PLOUGH   AND  THE   CROSS 

nies,  her  ritual,  will  be  a  living  inspiration  to  her  children 
again,  and  a  source  of  gracious  interest  and  example  to 
those  who  are  not  her  children." 

"  I  am  afraid/'  said  Lord  Strathbarra,  "  that  the  ideal 
is  impossible.  The  Church  organization  in  Ireland  would 
quarrel  on  some  pretext  with  the  nation  if  it  found  the 
nation  growing  too  strong,  and  it  would  have  Rome  and 
England  to  help  it.  The  tradition  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  for  ages  has  been  against  nationalities,  and  a 
change  of  policy  is  now,  humanly  speaking,  impossible. 
The  Greek  Catholic  Church  —  which  many  of  our  people 
do  not  know  is  really  a  Catholic  Church  —  has,  on  the 
other  hand,  been  always  friendly  to  nationality.  The 
educated  Irish  Catholics  who  are  loyal  to  nationality  as 
well  as  to  Christian  principles  may  ultimately  —  nay,  must 
ultimately  —  be  driven  to  find  a  solution  of  their  diffi 
culties  by  entering  into  communion  with  the  Greek 
Church.  You  could  not  imagine  the  Greek  Church  inter 
fering  with  the  Gaelic  League.  Our  relations  with  Rome 
are  entirely  unsatisfactory.  Ireland  is  not  treated  as  a 
Daughter  of  the  Church,  but  as  a  Drudge  downstairs." 

"  While,  of  course,  I  disagree  altogether  with  your 
Greek  Church  scheme,"  said  Father  Murray,  "  I  admit 
frankly  that  our  position  in  regard  to  Rome  is  sadly 
unsatisfactory.  English  influence  is  strong  at  the  Vatican, 
and  though  the  Maynooth  oath  of  loyalty  is  abolished, 
the  spirit  and  the  tradition  remain,  and  no  Irish  bishop  is 
appointed  unless  he  is  a  supporter  of  the  British  regime 
in  Ireland.  In  other  words,  Irish  episcopal  appointments 
are  also  political  appointments:  But  if  the  Irish  priests 
made  a  stand,  and  held  out,  Rome  would  not  and  could 


A    COUNCIL    AT    CUJAINUJMNSY  173 

not  compel  them  in  any  diocese  to  accept  an  anti-national 
or  an  tin-national  bishop.  Again,  Ireland  is  not  treated 
as  a  Catholic  country,  but  as  a  heathen  land.  She  is  not 
directly  under  the  Pope,  but  under  the  Propaganda " 

"  None  of  our  concerns  are  dealt  with  by  the  Pope ; 
all  of  them  by  Boards  of  Clerks  open  to  political  influ 
ences,"  9  interrupted  Lord  Strathbarra. 

"  The  clerks,  however,  are  ecclesiastics,"  replied  Father 
Murray.  "  But  our  position  is  unsatisfactory  all  the 
same,  and,  for  a  historic  Catholic  nation,  rather  humiliat 
ing.  I  readily  grant  you  that  Ireland  ought  to  be  restored 
to  her  old  and  honored  position." 

"  It  would  make  little  difference,  such  is  the  modern 
temper  of  Rome,  and  with  the  Jesuits,  those  historic 
enemies  of  all  national  spirit,  so  influential  at  the  Vati 
can,"  declared  Lord  Strathbarra.  "  In  any  case  liberty 
of  thought  is  becoming  impossible,  and  for  another  thing 
the  Church  government  has  become  over-organized,  and 
many  ecclesiastics  think  far  more  of  the  power  and  the 
machinery  of  government  than  of  the  original  and  saving 
Christian  ethics." 

Mr.  Carton  looked  up  again. 

"  Ecclesiastics  are  also  interested  directly  or  indirectly 
in  the  machinery  of  the  Stock  Exchange  and  in  the  drink 
traffic,"  he  said,  and  relapsed  into  contemplation,  while 
the  pained  look  deepened  on  Father  Wilson's  boyish  and 
wistful  face. 

"  The  trouble  goes  far  deeper  than  Lord  Strathbarra 
imagines,"  said  Father  Kenealy,  "  though  he  is  right 
in  the  contention  that  over-organization,  the  hypnotism 
by  machinery,  the  dead-weight  of  formalism,  and  the  love 


174  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

of  power  are  crying  evils.  The  great  want,  as  Fainne  an 
Lae  has  said  again  and  again,  is  applied  Christianity. 
The  majority  of  our  people  are  still  far  from  the  stage 
at  which  Modernism  could  interest  them  —  it  would  only 
confuse  or  unsettle  them  now  —  and  they  are  quite 
unconcerned  about  matters  of  Church  history  and  organ 
ization.  But  applied  Christianity  would  move  them  pro 
foundly,  would  give  the  Church  an  august  new  meaning, 
and  would  revolutionize  Irish  life.  It  is  the  business  of 
the  bishops  and  of  us  the  priests  to  begin  it.  Let  us  give 
up  our  '  palaces  '  and  fine  parochial  houses,  our  grazing 
system,  wherever  it  exists,  our  sporting,  our  dealings  with 
stockbrokers,  our  expensive  horses.,  and  so  on;  and  let 
us  live  simply.  Let  us  withdraw  all  the  wealth  we  have 
from  the  banks  and  elsewhere  and  devote  it  to  co-operative 
industries.  Let  us  cease  all  charges  in  connexion  with 
Masses,  Marriages,  and  everything  sacramental  and 
sacred.  Let  us  cease  from  expensive  church  building 
till  all  our  flocks  have  decent  homes,  and  till  libraries  and 
halls  for  the  people  are  universal.  Let  us  give  up  for 
ever  our  dining  with  the  genteel,  our  snobbish  social  hob 
nobbing  with  the  well-to-do.  Let  our  leisure  hours  be 
spent  with  the  workers,  walking  with  the  ploughman, 
chatting  at  the  forge,  in  the  shoemaker's  shop,  with  the 
tailor,  and  the  carpenter,  and  the  rest.  Let  us  no  longer 
be  a  caste  apart.  But  this  is  not  half  our  duty.  Let  us 
insist  from  ajtar  and  in  confessional  and  everywhere  that 
the  man  who  neglects  to  cultivate  his  land  properly,  the 
man  who  underpays  his  workers,  the  seller  who  adulter 
ates  food,  the  man  who  takes  rent  for  slums,  the  man 
who  in  any  shape  or  form  brings  trouble  to  his  fellow 


A    COUNCIL,    AT    CI;UAINI<UMNEY  175 

beings  for  the  sake  of  profits  —  are  all  grievous  sinners. 
Let  us  hold  up  in  all  their  heinousness  to  the  people  the 
whole  catalog  of  anti-social  crimes.  In  short,  in  God's 
name,  let  us  return  to  the  spirit  of  the  early  Church. 
Let  us  bring  back  Christ  to  the  everyday  life  of  Ire 
land." 

Mr.  Carton  looked  up  with  a  start. 

"If  only  you  were  a  bishop!"  he  said,  looking  with 
poignant  eyes  at  Father  Kenealy.  "  By  the  staff  of  St. 
Patrick  I  'd  spend  my  last  penny  to  endow  a  choir  in 
every  church  in  your  diocese." 

Then  Mr.  Carton  closed  his  eyes  again. 

"I  entirely  agree  with  everything  Father  Kenealy  has 
said,"  declared  Father  Murray.  "  You  all  know  that 
my  present  business  in  Ireland  is  partly  in  connexion 
with  a  position  that  will  enable  me  to  do  the  work  that 
is  near  my  heart,  here  in  our  own  land.  My  old  friend, 

the  aged  Bishop  of  ,  has  all  but  come  round  to  my 

views,  though  as  the  post  I  want  is  something  of  a  new 
departure  —  at  least  it  is  thought  so  in  these  conservative 
days  in  the  Irish  Church  —  the  task  of  convincing  him 
has  been  difficult.  If  I  obtain  the  position,  as  it  is  now 
virtually  certain  I  shall,  my  position  in  the  great  diocese 
will  be  one  of  enormous  responsibility,  and  glorious 
opportunity,  and  the  dream  of  my  life  will  be  in  a  fair 
way  towards  fulfilment." 

"  It  will  be  the  beginning  of  a  new  chapter  in  the 
relation  of  the  Irish  Church  to  national  and  intellectual 
life  —  it  is  almost  too  good  to  be  true,"  said  Fergus,  to 
whom  Father  Murray,  in  his  London  years,  had  so  often 
opened  his  heart. 


176  THE:    PLOUGH    AND    THE)    CROSS 

Father  Murray  shook  his  head  in  modest  deprecation 
of  his  friend's  enthusiasm,  but  he  smiled  gratefully. 

"  I  shall  show  the  people/'  he  said,  "  that  between  the 
Church  as  such — the  Church,  not  mistaken  Churchmen 
—  and  Irish  nationality  there  can  never  be  any  clash 
whatever.  And  I  hope,  with  God's  help,  to  preach  and  to 
put  into  practice  all  those  ideas  that  Father  Kenealy  has 
expressed.  But  there  are  other  great  issues  confronting 
us.  The  world  has  changed,  though  the  Irish  priests  as  a 
rule  do  not  want  to  admit  that  it  has.  Great  advances  on 
material  lines,  luminous  scientific  discoveries,  the  diffusion 
of  culture  and  half-culture,  and  several  other  things,  have 
appeared  to  put  man  in  a  new  relation  to  the  universe. 
I  am  afraid  that  Churchmen  generally  have  met  the  new 
situation  in  an  impossible  spirit,  and  in  Ireland  in  a 
reactionary  or  ignorant  spirit.  They  have  stood  for 
old  formulae  and  mediums  of  expression  that  were  tem 
porary  and  incidental,  they  have  stood  for  tales  rather 
than  the  truth  embodied  in  the  tales;  they  have  fought, 
especially  in  Ireland,  for  a  worldly  dominance  that  is  no 
part  of  their  divine  and  spiritual  mission.  They  have 
done  much  to  suggest,  what  is  essentially  untrue,  that  the 
Catholic  Church  is  a  despotism.  They  should  have  fallen 
back  upon  the  great  central  store  of  the  Church's  philo 
sophy,  with  its  profound  moral  and  intellectual  wealth  and 
inspiration,  and  enriched  and  encouraged  the  changing 
world  with  its  changeless  truth  and  abiding  appeal.  But 
the  master  minds  of  the  Church  are  a  sealed  book, 
especially  in  Ireland,  and  many  a  man  who  wants  to  be 
loyal  to  the  Church  of  his  fathers,  if  he  can  be  so  without 
intellectual  insincerity,  has  been  allowed  to  go  on  in  the 


A    COUNCIL    AT    ClyUAINIyUMNEY  177 

feeling  that  these  master  minds  are  primitive  and  out- 
of-date.  A  man  with  a  fair  intellect  must  really  turn 
away  in  despair  or  weariness  from  the  majority  of  Irish 
sermons  and  the  generality  of  the  stuff  that  is  called 
'  Catholic '  literature.  It  is  all  a  terrible  and  tragic 
blunder." 

"  But  don't  you  think,"  asked  Father  Wilson  pathetic 
ally,  "  that  Irish  faith  is  firm,  and  Irish  Catholic  instinct 
sound,  and  that  the  dangers  rife  in  Europe  remain  remote 
from  us  ?  " 

"  God  help  you !  —  with  your  untrained  people  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  printing  presses  of  Britain  on  the 
other,"  said  Father  Murray.  "  You  don't  .realize  what  is 
happening.  It  is  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  more  or 
less  educated  mind  of  the  country  is  drifting  away  from 
you.  It  does  not  revolt;  it  simply  does  not  care.  It 
does  not  yield  intellectual  allegiance  to  Catholicism.  Its 
attitude  in  the  main  is  not  the  result  of  searching  and 
conviction,  but  simply  of  ignorance.  The  master-minds 
and  the  great  philosophy  of  the  Church  would  win  it 
back,  arrest  those  on  the  way,  and  inspire  many  more. 
But  the  great  teachers  and  teaching  are  ignored  in  Ireland. 
Instead  of  these  you  give  the  Eden  story  literally,  you 
preach  a  material  hell,  you  repeat  the  legends  of  St. 
Patrick,  while  in  the  country  places  you  do  nothing  to 
dissipate  the  fantastic  idea  that  the  priests  can  work 
miracles  every  time  they  are  so  minded.  If  people  accept 
things  like  these  as  Catholic  truth,  and  give  up  the 
Church  when  they  outgrow  them,  assuming  that  none  of 
her  teaching  has  any  better  basis,  it  is  your  own  fault. 
The  leaders  of  the  Church  in  Ireland  must  put  folk-lore 


1^8  THE    PLOUGH     AND    THE}     CROSS 

aside  and  stand  for  the  golden  heart  and  philosophy  of 
Christianity." 

Mr.  Carton  looked  up,  and  glanced  solemnly  and  sadly 
round  the  company. 

"  It 's  all  in  vain,"  he  said.  "  Matters  in  the  Church 
must,  humanly  speaking,  go  from  bad  to  worse.  The 
strong  and  brilliant  men  will  be  kept  out  of  the  high 
positions.  The  safely-weak,  the  timid,  and  the  conserv 
ative  will  be  appointed  to  the  exalted  places.  The  next 
generation  and  the  next  will  see  timidity  more  timid,  and 
conservatism  more  conservative,  in  the  high  places.  Only 
an  institution  divine  in  origin  could  survive  through  it  all." 

This  was  the,  longest  speech  of  Mr.  Carton's  life.  The 
gloomy  philosophy  it  expressed  was  the  theme  of  dis 
cussion  till  Maire  and  Elsie  brought  in  supper.  Lord 
Strathbarra  at  once  became  eagerly  interested,  and  grace 
fully  managed  in  due  course  to  make  place  for  Elsie 
beside  himself.  During  supper  he  talked  with  mingled 
glow  and  blitheness,  seasoning  his  talk  with  pointed  anec 
dotes  from  the  great  capitals  of  Europe,  and  displaying 
what  to  a  few  of  the  company  was  a  new  and  richly  en 
tertaining  side  of  his  character.  The  whole  conversation 
was  animated,  but  leaping  in  a  somewhat  erratic,  lightly 
irresponsible  way  from  subject  to  subject  as  far  apart 
as  Maynooth  and  Rome.  A  melodious,  thoughtful  sen 
tence  from  Father  Murray  gave  it  poise  and  dignity  from 
time  to  time.  Mr.  Carton  said  short  and  solemn  things 
on  art  and  philosophy  in  the  manner  of  a  man  giving 
directions  to  favorite  dogs  or  horses.  Fergus  felt  himself 
wishing  for  his  riddle  and  a  quiet  corner  in  a  lonely  old 
house  beyond  a  wild  waste.  Elsie  answered  remarks  of 


A    COUNCIL,    AT    CIAJAINIvUMNEY  179 

Lord  Strathbarra  in  a  curiously  and  delicately  caustic 
way.  When  passing  down  to  help  Maire  at  the  close  she 
leaned  over  Fergus's  shoulder  to  take  something  from  the 
table,  resting  one  arm  on  his  neck  for  a  few  moments 
and  then,  as  she  slowly  drew  back,  touching  his  cheek 
with  her  hand  in  a  patting,  delicate  way,  and  pulling  his 
ear  finally,  unnoted  by  anybody  else,  a  general  dash  to 
disputation  having  been  caused  by  a  particular  militant 
remark,  made  in  his  splendidly  serene  way,  by  Lord 
Strathbarra.  Fergus  had  no  idea  what  the  remark  was 
about ;  the  touch  of  Elsie's  hand  on  his  cheek  had  carried 
his  imagination  with  great  suddenness  from  old  houses 
and  lonely  wastes  to  one  of  his  enchanted  islands,  and  the 
pulling  of  his  ear  sent  him  ten  thousand  leagues  or  so 
nearer  to  Tir  na  nOg* 

*  Land  of  the  Young,  or  Country  of  Perpetual  Youth.  A 
wonderland  in  the  western  sea  of  which  there  are  many  tales 
and  glimpses  in  earlier  Irish  literature. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


THE:  LEAGUE  OF  PROGRESSIVE;  PRIESTS 

iFTER  supper  Lord  Strathbarra  de 
clared  that  they  had  had  a  pleasant 
and  stimulating  evening,  but  when 
all  was  said  they  had  decided  upon 
no  bold  and  helpful  measures.  With 
all  the  wants  of  the  new  day,  and  the 
imminent  condemnation  of  the  Gaelic 
League  by  Rome,  it  was  time,  he  said 
in  his  genially  challenging  way,  for 
the  clerics  who  believed  in  Ireland  to 
exert  themselves. 

"  I  grow  more  and  more  confident,"  said  Father  Mur 
ray,  "  that  Rome  will  be  induced  to  hold  its  hand.  The 
dangers  that  such  high-handed  action  would  produce 
are  too  serious.  Besides,  I  know  from  very  high  au 
thority  that  in  progressive  minds  at  Rome  there  is  great 
anxiety  and  dissatisfaction  over  ecclesiastical  concerns 
in  Ireland,  and  these  men  feel  —  they  may  not  be  the 
majority,  but  they  count  —  that  an  organization  like  the 
Gaelic  League,  which  spreads  culture  and  self-respect, 
must  react  on  Church  affairs  in  the  long  run.  Rome 
has  been  perturbed  and  offended  over  sundry  Irish  mat- 


IvKAGUlC    OF    PROGRESSIVE    PRIESTS  l8l 

ters  of  late  years,  the  Armagh  celebrations  amongst 
them.  I  well  remember  the  Sunday;  I  was  on  a  visit 
to  the  West  of  Ireland  at  the  time.  For  financial  reasons, 
and  reasons  of  health,  it  was  my  lot  to  remain  alone  all 
day  while  the  whole  Irish  race  seemed  gathered  at 
Armagh.  I  was  able,  however,  to  drive  over  to  Kilmac- 
cluagh  and  sit  in  the  silent  choir,  and  in  the  rich  sun 
light,  think  of  the  Eire  that  once  was,  and  that  was  so 
much  more  real,  and  so  much  more  beautiful,  than  the 
Eire  that  was  on  view  at  Armagh  that  day.  I  found 
afterwards  that  at  Armagh  there  was  certainly  much 
make-believe.  It  might  to  some  seem  a  trifling  technical 
matter,  but  thoughtful  ecclesiastics  considered  it  charac 
teristic  of  one  side  of  Ireland,  that  the  actual  consecration 
of  the  cathedral,  which  alone  could  justify  the  formality 
of  the  Sunday's  proceedings,  was  gone  through  privately 
on  the  Wednesday  previous,  leaving  nothing  for  the 
Sunday  but  the  solemn  Mass,  which  in  a  normal  cathedral 
would  be  sung  every  day.  I  trusted  at  the  time  that  the 
foreign  prelates  did  not  go  home  with  their  tongues  in 
their  cheeks.  Again,  the  drinking  on  the  occasion  of  the 
social  festivities  was  painful  to  many.  Things  like  these 
tell  heavily  at  Rome,  and  will  make  them  very  chary 
about  interfering  with  that  rare  thing,  an  Irish  movement 
making  for  intellectual  sanity  and  a  bright  social  spirit." 

Mr.  Carton  was  deeply  impressed  by  the  point  about 
Armagh,  and  dwelt  upon  it  as  a  momentous  illustration 
of  the  truth  of  his  down-grade  philosophy. 

When  all  was  said,  Lord  Strathbarra  declared,  we 
could  count  upon  no  help,  but  might  reckon  on  much 
positive  hindrance  from  Rome.  He  gave  a  rapid  and 


182  THE:   PivOUGH   AND  THE:   CROSS 

lucid  review  of  the  historical  side  of  liberal  Catholicism, 
and  the  Immanentist  movement,,  showing,  that  the  end 
was  always  either  submission  to  ultramontanism,  or  a- 
vowed  departure  from  the  Church,  or  unexpressed  dissent 
and  silent  rebellion.  The  first  two  were  unhappy,  the 
last  was  unworthy.  He  did  not  believe  that  in  the  new 
crisis  more  than  two  or  three  men  in  Maynooth,  if  even 
so  many,  would  stand  firm.  And  in  the  untrained,  con 
fused,  dragooned  and  folk-lore-loving  Ireland  outside 
Maynooth  there  were  very  few  men  with  minds  of  their 
own  and  minds  of  the  depth  and  cast  that  counted.  So 
where  on  Irish  soil  was  the  hope?  The  more  he  re 
viewed  the  position  the  more  convinced  he  was  that  the 
issue  and  the  hope  would  turn  surely  and  inevitably  to 
his  Hebridean  shore  and  scheme.  His  island  would  send 
a  message  and  set  an  example  to  the  new  age  even  as 
lona  sent  light  to  the  old.  Ireland  would  gradually  learn 
and  take  heart  from  Strathbarra,  and  eventually  she  might 
have  sufficient  courage  to  insist  on  a  natural  understand 
ing  with  Rome,  and  to  put  herself  right  with  her  own 
soul. 

"  I  am  deeply  distressed/'  said  Father  Murray,  "  over 
Lord  Strathbarra's  criticism  of  Rome  and  over  Mr. 
Carton's  profound  pessimism.  Yet  there  is  some  basis 
for  each,  and  criticism  may  imply  an  underlying  love  of 
perfection.  Lord  Strathbarra  would  love  Rome  if  she 
were  perfect.  But  with  all  her  political  and  diplomatic 
mistakes  we  should  not  be  unfilially  severe.  We  should 
remember  the  mighty  spiritual  mission  and  the  august 
traditions  of  Rome,  and  we  should  not  hastily  lose  hope 
that  even  her  worldly  and  human  faults  are  beyond  cur- 


THE)    LEAGUE    OF    PROGRESSIVE    PRIESTS  183 

ing.  Anyhow,  to  the 'truly  instructed  Catholic  they  do 
not  count,  or  at  least  they  need  not  worry  him.  He  owes 
no  obedience  to  political  orders  from  the  Vatican  —  the 
Catholic  Church  as  such  has  nothing  to  say  to  or  against 
nationality  —  and  in  matters  of  conscience  the  Pope  him 
self  has  no  power  over  any  Catholic.  If  it  were  conceiv 
able  that  the  Pope  would  say  one  thing  and  conscience 
another,  we  would  be  bound  to  follow  conscience.  Our 
Irish  relation  to  Rome  should  be.  inspired  by  reverence 
for  its  spiritual  side  as  the  guardian  of  our  supreme 
body  of  moral  truth  and  the  helper  of  our  spiritual  lives. 
We  may  be  as  critical  as  we  like  of  its  diplomatic  and 
intellectual  side.  Of  its  personalities  in  any  age,  and 
their  theories  on  science,  politics,  and  a  hundred  other 
worldly  interests  and  issues,  we  need  take  no  concern. 
An  Ireland  loyal  to  real  Catholicity,  but  independent  and 
critical  towards  Vaticanism,  would  be  a  healthy  fact, 
and  a  beneficial  factor  in  the  world.  But  while  we  are 
demanding  perfection  in  Rome  on  her  worldly  "as  well  as 
on  her  spiritual  side,  we  are  apt  to  forget  the  duty  of 
beginning  at  home,,  with  our  individual  selves  and  our 
nation.  Each  and  all  of  us  have  as  serious  and  as  solemn 
a  concern  with  the  finer  spirit  and  the  fuller  practice  of 
Christianity  as  has  Rome." 

Lord  Strathbarra  admitted  that  all  this  was  excellent 
in  theory  but  impossible  in  practice.  Rome  would  insist 
on  being  taken  as  a  whole,  and  would  brook  no  distinction 
between  her  spiritual  and  her  political  sides.  She  had 
Ireland  in  thrall,  body  and  soul,  and  would  insist  on 
keeping  her  so,  as  long  as  she  ruled  in  the  land. 

Father  Kenealy  declared  that  the  time  for  a  new  de- 


184  THIS    PLOUGH     AND    Till'}    CROSS 

parture  had 'come,  but  it  must  not  be  either  on  the  lines 
of  the  Maynooth  movement  or  the  Strathbarra  revolt. 
He  had  brooded  long  on  the  social,  national  and  religious 
situation,  and  he  felt  that  the  fit  beginning  was  at  once 
simple  and  daring.  There  ought  to  be  a  League  of  Priests 
—  progressive,  national-minded  and  apostolic-spirited 
priests,  mostly  young  —  who  would  carry  out  unflinch 
ingly  in  their  several  spheres  the  practical  Christianity  he 
had  expounded  earlier  in  the  night.  He  went  over  the 
broad  details  and  suggestions  again,  speaking  with  great 
earnestness  and  intensity.  After  hearing  Father  Murray 
he  was  ready  to  agree  that  the  priests  in  question  should 
also  expound  the  philosophy  of  Catholicity  to  the  best 
of  their  opportunity  and  ability,  but  the  supreme  matter 
was  the  logical  and  inspiring  application  of  Christianity 
in  every  phase  and  circumstance  of  their  daily  lives. 
There  should  be  no  formal  rules  or  organization;  the 
League  of  Priests  should  rather  be  a  union  in  spirit  and 
understanding;  it  would  be  heartening  to  each  to  know 
that  the  others  were  at  work  in  different  parts  of  the 
vineyard.  There  could  be  foregathering  from  time  to 
time;  but  formalism  should  be  strictly  and  ardently 
avoided.  Fainne  an  Lae  could  publish,  in  Irish  pref 
erably,  what  they  thought  would  be  encouraging  and 
expressive  in  regard  to  the  work,  without  hinting,  how 
ever,  that  there  was  a  definite  League  in  being.  Gradually 
the  spirit  would  permeate  all  the  young  priests  coming 
out  of  Maynooth,  and  the  unspoiled  amongst  the  laity 
would  take  fire  from  the  outset. 

"  Splendid !  "  cried  Lord  Strathbarra,  his  face  beaming. 
"  Ye  do  not  know  the  tremendous  adventure  on  which 


THE    I.EAGUE    01*    PROGRESSIVE    PRIESTS  185 

ye  are  embarking,  nor  the  vested  interests  and  prejudices 
against  which  your  applied  Christianity  will  crash.  But 
go  ahead !  Ye  have  the  right  spirit,  and  ye  will  be  most 
certainly  training  and  preparing  recruits  and  workers  for 
my  own  island  scheme.  As  soon  as  a  member  of  the 
League  of  Priests  comes  to  grief  let  him  set  forth  with 
out  delay  for  Strathbarra;  there  will  be  a  welcome  and 
a  home  for  him." 

Father  Kenealy,  however,  was  too  young  and  couragous 
to  be  easily  daunted.  It  was  agreed  to  submit  the  idea 
forthwith  to  all  friends  amongst  the  progressive  minded 
clergy  within  and  without  Maynooth,  and  to  broach  it 
in  a  general  way  in  the  Irish  columns  of  Fainne  an  Lae. 
Father  Wilson  grew  more  wistful;  Mr.  Carton  went 
deeper  in  the  depths  of  reverie. 

"  It  is  a  noble  prospect,"  said  Lord  Strathbarra,  "  but 
too  interesting  for  further  discussion  at  this  late  hour. 
We  shall  have  plenty  of  opportunities  to  review  it  in  all 
its  bearings  when  we  are  all  together  —  in  the  Hebrides. 
Fergus,  you  may  as  well  look  ahead  a  little,  and  give 
Strathbarra  in  the  Hebrides  as  the  permanent  address  of 
the  League  of  Priests  who  are  going  to  stand  for  practical 
Christianity  in  Ireland." 

Lord  Strathbarra  rose.  The  others  also  prepared  for 
departure.  Fergus  accompanied  his  friends  to  the  end 
of  the  lane,  walking  by  Father  Murray's  side  and  listen 
ing  eagerly  to  the  plans  for  his  settlement  in  Ireland, 
which  he  reviewed  with  so  much  hope  and  enthusiasm. 

"  When  I  am  coadjutor-bishop,"  said  Father  Murray 
gaily,  "  I  shall  often  take  a  text  or  an  illustration  from 
Fainne  an  Lae.  I  often  try  to  picture  the  sort  of  a  paper 


i86  THE  PLOUGH   AND  THE   CROSS 

you  would  produce  every  week  if  Ireland  were  a  place 
where  things  happened  and  gave  you  the  fit  interests  to 
describe  and  interpret  —  if  she  were  a  full-living,  creative 
land,  with  artistic  and  intellectual  momentum,  and  the 
Church  a  great,  culture-giving  force,  with  an  influence 
on  all  the  national  life.  At  present  that  glorious  Ireland 
exists  only  in  our  hearts,  but  please  God  it  will  be  an 
actuality  ere  we  go." 

He  spoke  with  keen  distress  of  the  Maynooth  trouble. 

"  With  the  present  episcopal  order  and  mood,  and  the 
ignorant  condition  of  the  popular  mind,  they  ought  to 
walk  more  warily,"  he  said.  "  The  manifest  duty  is  to 
teach,  soothe  and  uplift  the  nation's  mind,  and  not  to  be 
heated  or  critical.  Let  them  emphasize  the  real  beauty  and 
philosophy  of  the  Church,  which  is  much  more  advanced 
than  the  majority  of  people  think,  and  the  formalized 
folk-lore  and  the  excrescences  will  gradually  fall  away. 
Starting  straight  off  to  attack  the  folk-lore  will  give  the 
poor  people  the  idea  that  the  inner  truth  itself  is  being 
attacked,  and  the  powers  that  be  will  take  advantage  of 
the  ignorance  and  confusion  to  crush  the  pioneers  if  they 
can." 

Fergus  mentioned  the  professor's  project  of  the  pam 
phlet  on  Hell-fire. 

"  The  wrong  way  to  go  to  work  and  the  wrong  time," 
said  Father  Murray  emphatically.  "  Reveal  the  love  of 
God,  the  wonder  of  life,  the  beauty  of  holiness,  the 
grandeur  of  Christianity,  applied  practically  and  unflinch 
ingly  to  everyday  affairs,  and  you  will  gradually  take 
the  mind  of  the  people,  so  to  say,  out  of  Hell.  Hell  as 
commonly  understood  is  a  popular  not  a  Church  concep- 


THE)    LEAGUED    OF    PROGRESSIVE    PRIESTS  l8? 

tion  at  all.  What  the  Church  really  teaches  about  Hell 
is  no  easy  matter  to  explain,  and  her  reticence  has  given 
the  popular  imagination  its  opportunity.  The  very  study 
of  eschatology  is  a  sort  of  hell  in  itself.  Egyptian,  He 
brew,  Greek,  Patristic,  and  medieval  ideas  and  notions 
are  mixed  up,  and  many  moderns  turn  away  from  it  all 
in  mingled  horror,  weariness  and  incredulity.  No  serious 
theologian  now  gives  a  thought  to  a  hell  of  material  fire, 
and  it  is  a  holy  and  wholesome  thought  to  tell  the  people 
as  much.  But  the  abiding  question  of  retribution  is 
excessively  complicated  and  difficult.  It  might  be  better 
for  our  friends  to  attend  more  to  the  development  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  in  the  individual  and  the  nation." 
The  high  road  was  now  reached,  and  the  parting  of 
the  ways  had  come. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THI>  TROMISU  0 


S  Fergus  approached  the  house,  after 
the  parting  with  his  friends,  he  saw 
that  Elsie  was  standing  at  the  open 
door.    He  had  been  looking  from  the 
splendid  solemnity  of  the  stars  to  the 
cloistral   solemnity  of   Meath,   pond 
ering  over  the  mystery  of  so  much 
silent  matter  above  and  below,  and 
wondering  if  it  all  held  myriad  mani 
festations  of  existence  of  which  the 
senses  gave  no  idea.     The  picture  which  Elsie  presented 
gave  his  thoughts  a  new  turn.     She   stepped   forward, 
lifted  her  hands  and  shook  his  shoulders,  while  her  eyes 
clouded  and  her  lips  pouted  in  a  curiously  childish  way. 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,"  she  said,  "what.  time  is  the  first  up- 
train  in  the  morning  from  Baile  na  Boinne  ?  " 

He  replied  promptly  that  slow  as  Meath  trains  were 
it  would  creep  along  an  hour  or  two  before  she  rose. 
For  it  would  be  late  when  she  went  to  bed  —  he  had  so 
many  things  to  say  to  her  after  the  events  of  the  last 
twelve  hours.  And  she  had  better  come  in,  for  she  might 
catch  cold  even  on  a  summer  night.  True  the  prospect 


THE:  PROMISE;  otf  EXSIE;  I91 

from  the  open  door  was  beautiful,  but  she  would  bring 
in  the  starlight  with  her,  so  he  could  not  complain. 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,"  she  said,  as  they  went  in,  "  I  am 
catching  that  morning  train,  and  I  am  going  away  from 
the  Boyne  Valley  for  ever.  I  '11  have  time  to  see  Maeve  in 
Dublin  before  I  leave  Ireland." 

"  Maeve  may  possibly  be  down  on  the  first  train  to 
Baile  na  Boinne,"  he  said  smiling.  "  Your  trains  would 
meet  a  good  way  beyond  Tara.  Even  from  passing 
Meath  trains  you  would  not  have  time  enough  for  all 
ye  would  want  to  say  to  each  other.  You  count  too 
much  on  the  accommodating  spirit  of  Meath  trains.  I 
assure  you  that  passengers  —  even  fair  lady  passengers 
—  are  not  so  much  as  allowed  to  get  out  and  exchange 
compliments,  while  all  passengers  are  forbidden  under  a 
penalty  to  pluck  flowers  while  the  trains  are  in  motion." 

"  You  are  getting  into  a  perfectly  disagreeable  temper, 
Fergus  O'Hagan.  It 's  on  a  par  with  your  treatment  of 
me  all  the  evening  and  all  day.  That  is  why  I  am  leaving 
your  moonstruck  valley  and  your  impossible  country." 

"As  a  greater  than  any  of  us  said :  I  am  not  conscious 
to  myself  of  anything,  yet  I  am  not  thereby  justified." 

"  Not  conscious  to  yourself  of  anything,  indeed !  Your 
letters  were  most  appetizing  and  charming  to  the  spirit, 
especially  the  last  eight  pages  or  so  in  each.  They  gave 
me  to  understand  that  I  'd  be  treated  like  a  fairy  princess 
in  Eirinn.  But  most  of  the  time  you  leave  me,  and  go 
planning  hare-brained  projects  with  all  sorts  of  mad 
people.  Last  night,  as  my  mind  was  excited,  the  thing 
had  some  sort  of  attraction;  but  I  shook  myself  into 
sanity  when  you  deserted  me  for  Dublin  this  afternoon. 


192  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

And,  lo !  tonight  —  my  second  in  your  eerie  valley  —  you 
fill  the  house  with  twice  as  many  mad  people,  and  barely 
recognize  my  existence." 

"  Elsie  O'Kennedy,  I  know  that  even  you  must  have 
a  slight  touch  of  vanity  somewhere,  and  I  am  sure  that, 
you  are  secretly  delighted  at  the  unwonted  attraction 
you  have  been  to  so  many  leaders  of  the  people." 

"  Leaders  of  the  people!  Madame  Madcap  is  perfectly 
sane  and  natural  in  comparison.  I  never  heard  such  in 
human  conversation  as  during  the  last  couple  of  days. 
Can  ye  really  keep  it  up  all  the  year  round?  Do  ye 
never  descend  from  such  mountain-high  topics  as  Genesis, 
General  Councils,  and  the  manners  and  customs  of 
bishops  ?  "  They  were  standing  by  the  mantel-piece  in 
the  large  front  room,  where  the  night's  discussion  had 
taken  place.  He  laid  his  hand  gaily  on  her  shoulder. 

"  I  hope  you  '11  keep  up  this  charming  affectation  of  dis 
pleasure,"  he  said,  "  until  I  get  the  picture  well  imprinted 
in  my  mind.  It  becomes  you  beautifully,  and  I  want  to 
add  it  to  the  lovely  stock  of  '  phases  '  of  you  that  enrich 
my  imagination.  But,  by  the  way,  I  've  a  little  account 
to  settle  with  you.  Why  did  you  look  so  grave  when  I 
met  you  this  evening  on  coming  down  from  Dublin,  and 
when  I  could  not  very  well  kiss  you  back  to  good  humor  ? 
Lord  Strathbarra  was  present,  you  know,  and  I  didn't 
want  to  make  him  envious." 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,  I  'm  not  going  to  tell  you  why  I 
looked  grave  and  unhappy,  because  it  might  make  you 
too  conceited.  You  are  bad  enough  already,  just  because 
people  say  nice  things  about  your  soulful  and  impossible 
paper." 


THE   PROMISE   OF    EXSIE  193 

"  It  is  well  to  know  how  it  strikes  a  fair  contemporary. 
I  assure  myself  that  the  chief  thing  I  have  been  learning 
in  Ireland  is  profound  humility." 

"  Well,  don't  look  sad  over  it/'  said  Elsie,  "  or  I  might 
be  tempted  to  relent  towards  you,  and  'tis  troublesome  to 
have  a  fight  with  temptation.  For  I  'm  not  going  to 
relent,  so  long  as  you  treat  me  so  barbarously  in  this 
outlandish  valley  of  yours." 

"  I  'd  have  kissed  you  before  this/'  he  said,  suiting 
the  action  to  the  word,  "  only  I  was  afraid  it  would  break 
this  novel  and  delightful  mood  of  yours;  and  I  wanted 
to  study  and  enjoy  it." 

"  More  cold-blooded  study  of  me,  as  if  I  were  some 
strange  '  subject ! '  I  won't  stand  it,  Fergus  O'Hagan. 
And  you  need  not  think  that  kisses  will  improve  your 
position.  Even  as  to  kisses  —  why,  you  were  afraid  to 
kiss  me  today  when  you  were  leaving  for  Dublin,  just 
because  Maire  was  present." 

"  What  a  stupid  and  unaccountable  piece  of  forgetful- 
ness  !  "  he  said.  "  But  I  was  excited  and  concerned  after 
the  visit  to  Mr.  Milligan.  And  I  was  in  a  hurry  to  catch 
the  train." 

"  Quite  like  you,  Fergus  O'Hagan.  Thinking  ever  so 
much  more  about  schemes  and  men  and  trains  than  about 
me,  though  you  pretend  all  sorts  of  poetical  things  on 
paper,  when  I  'm  as  far  away  as  Paris.  You  must  find  it 
very  convenient  to  have  me  so  far  off.  At  that  distance 
you  can  invest  me  with  a  sort  of  enchantment  —  you  are 
an  excellent  hand  at  the  manufacture  of  golden  halos  — - 
and  there 's  no  danger  of  my  disturbing  your  solemn 
affairs,  your  plots  and  plans  with  moonstruck  people 


•  194  THE   PLOUGH   AND   THE:   CROSS 

against    other    moonstruck    people.      Lord    Strathbarra 
would  be  a  great  deal  more  considerate." 

"You  would  find  him  very  trying  as  a  lover,  be-, 
cause  you  would  have  to  keep  yourself  astonishingly  well 
posted  in  ancient  and  modern  theology.  The  strain 
would  be  too  much  for  you.  Now,  I  am  a  great  deal 
more  reasonable  —  I  talk  a  fair  share  of  light  and  airy 
nonsense." 

"  Thank  you  very  much,  Fergus  O'Hagan.  It  is 
exceedingly  kind  of  you  to  accommodate  yourself  to  the 
wee  and  babyish  intelligence.  But  you  need  not  think 
that  Lord  Strathbarra  is  interested  only  in  my  theology. 
However,  I  won't  tell  you  any  more,  for  I  'm  getting  quite 
frightened  about  that  wanton,  wicked,  and  jealous  nature 
of  yours." 

"  I  'm  charmed,"  he  said,  as  he  laid  his  hands  on  her 
shoulders  gently,  "  to  find  that  you  have  so  much  of  the 
child-spirit  left.  I  have  been  afraid  that  you  were  grow 
ing  too  wise  and  womanish." 

Her  expression  changed  with  surprising  suddenness, 
her  face  becoming  clouded  and  pathetic,  and  her  eyes 
filling  with  tears. 

"  No ;  I  'm  growing  absurd  and  unhappy,"  she  said. 
"  I  was  thinking  about  you  all  the  afternoon,  and  I  was 
cross  with  myself  and  you,  and  then  cross  for  being  cross. 
Somehow  everything  seems  to  have  been  changing  ever 
since  we  left  Amiens  Street  yesterday.  It  began  to  come 
over  me  when  I  looked  at  you  as  Lord  Strathbarra  was 
talking  in  the  train,  and  then  when  we  had  that  talk  by 
the  river,  and  again  when  we  were  coming  back  last 
night.  This  taking  one  another  seriously  is  destroying 


THE:  PROMISE  OF  ELSIE  195 

the  old  charm,  and  making  us  conventional  people,  which 
is  against  our  natures." 

:'  This  is  profound  and  eloquent,"  said  Fergus,  gently 
brushing  her  tears  away.  "  But  like  many  other  pro 
found  things,  it  is  just  a  little  obscure." 

"  Because  you  do  not  quite  want  to  see  my  meaning," 
she  said,  a  bright  roguish  gleam  stealing  up  into  her  eyes. 
"  I  want  to  be  as  interested  in  you  as  ever,,  and  you  as 
interested  in  me,  but  dismal  seriousness  would  be  provok 
ing.  And  look  here,  Fergus  O'Hagan,  you  have  splendid 
work  to  do,  and  must  not  go  wasting  your  time  and  mind 
in  idealizing  me  or  anybody  else.  I  'd  rather  that  you 
would  idealize  me  than  anybody  else ;  indeed,  I  'd  get 
exceedingly  cross-tempered  if  you  idealized  somebody 
else  or  several  somebody  elses ;  but  I  want  you  to  be  just 
rational  as  you  were  before;  to  go  on  with  the  work  of 
your  moonshiny  paper,  and  your  cloud-sweeping,  and  to 
let  your  imagination  play  with  me  by  way  of  recreation 
only." 

"And  if  this  momentous  treaty  is  ratified,  what  is  the 
position  of  Lord  Strathbarra  ?  "  asked  Fergus.  "Is  he 
to  be  unpledged,  and  free  to  raid  my  fairy  territory?  " 

"  You  are  childish,  Fergus  O'Hagan.  I  '11  mix  up 
Eusebius  and  Lammenais,  or  do  something  equally  ab 
surd  one  of  these  days,  and  then  Lord  Strathbarra's 
interest  will  die  a  sudden  death.  He  made  me  feel 
gloomy,  too,  this  afternoon.  He  was  talking  a  lot  about 
second-sight  and  other  weird  things,  and  he  hinted  that 
there  were  ordeals  before  you;  and  I  was  as  angry  as 
anything.  He  really  knows  no  more  than  I  do  about 
the  future.  He  hinted  that  I  could  have  his  island " 


196  THE     PLOUGH     AND    THE    CROSS 

"  Ha !  "  said  Fergus,  "  this  is  becoming  dramatic  and 
interesting." 

"  Well,  I  dealt  in  hints  also/'  said  Elsie,  "  and  made 
light  of  islands  girt  by  the  wild  sea.  I  declared  that  my 
passion  for  freedom  is  unbounded " 

"And  I  suppose  he  felt  sorry  that  he  hadn't  a  con 
tinent  to  offer  you,"  said  Fergus. 

"  Jealous  again,  Fergus  O'Hagan.  I  believe  that  even 
you  do  not  realize  my  love  of  freedom  and  independence. 
I  'm  an  indescribably  tameless  person,  and  anyone  who 
thinks  I  can  be  easily  lured  into  marriage  is  leaving  my 
wild  free  spirit  out  of  the  reckoning.  But  as  for  you 
I  want  you  to  remain  devoted  to  me  —  in  a  reasonable 
way — and  not  to  be  the  least  bit  jealous,  when  any  of 
your  unconventional  friends  think  they  detect  in  me  a 
budding  theologian." 

"And  in  return  for  my  agreement  to  those  modest 
demands " 

"  Why,  I  '11  be  exceedingly  devoted  to  you  —  in  a 
common-sense  way  —  and  I  '11  faithfully  promise  never 
to  marry  anybody  without  your  permission." 

"  You  are  the  most  original  sprite  on  this  side  of 
fairyland,"  said  Fergus,  with  a  laugh.  "  Such  an  arrange 
ment  may  sound  gracious  and  charming,  but  it  might 
place  me  in  a  tragic  difficulty.  Suppose  you  grew  very 
fond  of  somebody  else,  on  marriage  with  whom  your 
happiness  would  depend.  I,  to  whom  your  happiness 
means  so  much  more  than  I  can  possibly  describe,  would 
logically  be  bound  to  agree.  But  at  what  a  sheer  personal 
sacrifice !  It  would  be  an  awful  dilemma." 

"  I  thought  you  'd  be  quite  charmed  with  my  promise, 


THE  PROMISE  of  ELSIE  197 

ungrateful  man/'  said  Elsie.  "  I  'd  make  it  to  no  one  else 
in  the  world,  and  you  wilfully  close  your  eyes  to  the 
kindly  and  trustful  side  of  it." 

"But  don't  you  see  the  cruel  dilemma?" 

"  No,"  said  Elsie ;  "  I  refuse  to  look  at  it.  I  am  in 
earnest  about  the  promise,  and  you  ought  to  feel  com 
plimented.  I  have  to  take  some  drastic  step  to  cure  you 
of  your  gloomy  and  impossible  moods,  and  your  erratic 
treatment  of  me,  and  this  is  the  best  I  can  think  of.  To 
be  quite  serious,  we  are  going  to  prove  to  our  satisfaction 
that  a  beautiful  and  affectionate  friendship  —  though 
friendship  seems  too  cold  a  word  —  can  exist  between 
man  and  woman,  without  leading  to  misunderstandings 
and  complications.  Mind  and  spirit  must  regulate  our 
attitude  throughout." 

"  It  is  wonderful  to  think,"  he  said,  "  how  much  of 
my  own  half-formed  thought  and  underlying  feeling  you 
can  clearly  and  pointedly  express  on  occasions.  But  in 
this  instance  I  foresee  difficulties." 

"  Don't  meet  them  half-way.  And  now  you  can  kiss 
me  good-night,  or  rather  good-morning.  The  hours  that 
we  keep  in  your  wonderful  valley  are  worse  than 
Maeve's." 

As  she  tripped  lightly  away  she  laughed  in  the  musical, 
full-hearted,  fascinating  way  that  made  Fergus  think  of 
her  as  the  Spirit  of  Laughter.  .  .  . 

He  felt  as  he  sat  alone,  and  thought  over  the  puzzle 
of  things,  that  it  would  be  pleasant  to  marry  Elsie; 
he  also  felt  that  it  would  be  pleasant  not  to  marry  Elsie, 
but  just  to  let  the  present  subtle  and  tantalizing  harmony 
continue. 


CHAPTER  XX 
MR.    MULLIGAN'S   CROWNING  SCHEME 

;HE  singing  of  the  birds  and  the  songs 
of  workers  in  the  gardens  woke 
Fergus  early  next  morning.  Sean 
O'Carroll  trolled  a  racy  Southern 
ditty  in  the  kitchen  garden  below  his 
window.  When  he  dressed  and  went 
downstairs,  he  heard  the  voices  of 
Elsie  and  Maire  in  the  front.  The 
old  woman  was  briskly  sweeping  the 
sanded  space  before  the  door,  though 
it  really  needed  no  sweeping  what 
ever.  She  gave  Fergus  and  Elsie  an  early  cup  of  tea 
under  the  drooping-ash,  and  in  buoyant  humor  with 
themselves  and  the  world  they  went  for  a  river-side  walk 
before  breakfast. 

Soon  after  breakfast,  as  they  discussed  plans,  Mr. 
Milligan  drove  over.  Fergus  was  startled  at  the  idea  of 
his  coming  out,  he  looked  so  weak  and  ill.  Mr.  Milligan 
protested  that  he  felt  better,  but  could  not  rest  till  he  had 
got  his  new  plans  ahead  and  in  order.  He  was  greatly 
attracted  by  Elsie,  and  asked  much  about  her,  as  soon 
as  he  and  Fergus  were  alone  together. 

"  You    must    be    wonderfully    devoted    to    ideas,    Mr. 


MR.  MIUJGAN'S  CROWNING  SCHEME  199 

O'Hagan/'  he  said,  "  if  you  can  cheerfully  work  on  in 
Ireland  and  let  that  charming  young  lady  stay  in  Paris. 
It  is  magnificent,  but  somehow  it  seems  to  me  to  be  also 
a  little  inhuman.  I  would  not  be  equal  to  the  sacrifice 
myself.  I  'd  get  married,  always  assuming,  of  course, 
that  the  young  lady  were  willing.  And  curiously  enough 
I  Ve  been  thinking  that  we  ought  to  make  matters  easier 
for  you.  You  have  too  much  to  do  for  the  paper.  We 
could  easily  get  a  sub-editor  to  relieve  you  of  a  lot  of 
detail,  and  then  your  writing  could  be  done  more  easily 
and  peacefully  down  here  in  the  Boyne  Valley.  I  thought 
of  the  paper  at  first  as  something  modest  and  subsidiary, 
but  the  character  of  the  writing,  and  the  alarm  of  my 
timid  and  complaining  clerical  friends  are  coming  to 
show  me  it's  special  and  striking  importance.  Also,  I  can 
give  you  more  land  if  you  desire  it.  I  Ve  sometimes 
feared  that  you  might  become  daunted  by  our  difficulties, 
or  that  the  taste  for  travel  might  re-assert  itself  in  you. 
That  young  lady  would  fix  you  very  happily  to  our  valley. 
Why  didn't  you  tell  me  about  her  before  ?  " 

"  We  are  great  friends,"  said  Fergus,  "  but  I  'm  afraid 
that  she  does  not  regard  me  with  entire  seriousness." 

A  smile  played  over  Mr.  Milligan's  pale  face. 

"  That,"  he  said,  "  would  be  an  additional  attraction 
in  a  charming  and  true-hearted  helpmate.  The  women 
who  take  men  with  entire  seriousness,  are  never  their 
best  helpers.  When  you  are  as  old  as  I  am,  Mr.  O'Hagan, 
you  will  realize  the  value  and  virtue  of  a  sense  of  humor 
in  a  wife.  Plainly  you  do  not  know  as  much  about 
womankind  yet  as  you  do  about  the  rural  problem  and 
the  philosophy  of  the  Irish  language  movement." 


2OO  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

He  found  it  difficult  to  turn  away  from  the  thought  of 
Elsie  and  a  possible  life  in  the  Boyne  Valley.  He  had 
pleasant  new  schemes  in  view  —  was  not  there  some 
artistic  and  delicate  work  which  she  could  superintend 
or  direct?  And  then  there  was  the  biggest  scheme  of 
all,  on  which  he  had  been  brooding  of  late,  and  the 
details  of  which  were  now  clearer. 

It  was  certainly  a  spacious  scheme.  He  would  make 
over  a  great  tract  of  his  adjacent  grass  land  to  be  the 
basis  of  it.  He  would  devote  some  thousands  of  pounds 
towards  the  initial  tasks  and  the  working  of  it.  He  would 
ask  the  bishop  and  others  to  come  in  and  appeal  with 
him  in  Meath  for  the  further  funds  that  might  be  needed ; 
in  any  case  it  would  be  necessary  to  postpone  for  the 
present  the  building  of  new  churches,  the  erection  of 
costly  altars  and  organs,  etc.,  which  would  be  a  tax  on 
the  popular  resources ;  the  people  would  thus  be  free  to 
support  the  new  project;  and  to  this  end  the  bishop's 
agreement  and  patronage  were  essential.  The  initial  idea 
was  to  establish  prizes  and  scholarships  in  connexion  with 
the  schools  in  the  diocese,  and  to  give  those  who  won 
them  an  agricultural  training,  or  a  training  in  some 
industry  allied  to  agriculture,  and  to  entitle  them  further 
more,  on  very  modest  terms,  to  a  certain  number  of  acres 
of  the  allotted  land,  or  to  positions,  as  the  case  might  be, 
in  the  industrial  departments  to  be  started  in  connexion 
with  the  Garden  City,  as  he  might  call  it.  He  said  much 
about  procedure,  possible  help,  developments,  educational 
and  artistic  ideas,  transits,  markets,  and  more.  The  point 
was  that  he  was  prepared  to  make  a  definite  offer  on  a 
large  scale,  and  whether  others  followed  or  not,  there 


MR.    MIUvlGAN'S    CROWNING    SCHEME  2OI 

was  a  good  deal  to  go  upon.  It  was  plain  that  such  a 
scheme  would  come  home  with  direct  and  kindling  interest 
to  the  people  generally,  for  it  meant  education  for  their 
children,  and  then  a  start  in  life,  nay  a  settlement  on  the 
land,  or  in  industries  related  to  the  land.  If  the  bishop 
and  others  were  willing  to  stand  for  the  scheme  whole 
heartedly  the  funds  might  be  forthcoming  to  secure  ad 
joining  land,  and  to  start  there  in  the  Tara  country  a 
spacious  Garden  City  and  a  world  of  industry  that  would 
strike  the  people's  imagination,  stir  their  energies,  and 
make  history  —  or  conduce  to  a  happiness  much  more 
important  than  history.  He  had  been  thinking  a  good 
deal  of  late  of  the  wonderful  work  at  Mount  Melleray 
—  to  which  Ireland  apparently  gave  surprisingly  little 
thought  or  attention  —  and  he  saw  no  reason  why  in 
their  own  way  and  on  their  own  lines  in  Meath  they  could 
not  achieve  results  as  creditable  as  those  of  the  monks. 
There  were  no  class  distinctions  at  Mount  Melleray  — 
the  abbot  was  as  humble  and  as  zealous  as  the  rest  — 
and  all  recognized  the  duty  of  work  and  pursued  an  ideal 
in  year-long  silence.  Meath's  Garden  City  would  not 
try  poor  humanity  so  much,  and  would  give  it  earthly  and 
human  joys.  It  might  be  a  merry  and  beautiful  Melleray, 
or  haply  a  pleasant  Tara  of  the  twentieth  century  and 
after. 

A  land  scheme  stirred  the  imagination  of  Fergus  like 
poetry  and  romance ;  and  here  was  something  of  a  feast. 
He  raised  points  that  gave  Mr.  Milligan  an  opportunity 
of  showing  his  genius  for  practical  detail,  and  he  heart 
ened  his  courageous  and  courtly  old  friend  by  the  story 
of  what  the  young  priests  dreamed,  and  their  projected 


2O2  THE     PLOUGH     AND    THE     CROSS 

league    for  the   everyday   application   of   Christianity   to 
Irish  life  and  circumstances. 

"  But  alas,  Mr.  O'Hagan,"  said  the  old  man,  "  such 
priests  are  few  as  yet,  especially  in  rich  and  melancholy 
Meath.  Father  Murray  and,,  I  believe,  Father  Kenealy, 
are  not  Meathmen.  And  a  great  deal  depends  on  the 
bishops.  I  wonder  why  so  many  of  their  lordships  remain 
unconcerned  and  socially  asleep  while  Ireland  perishes. 
It  saddens  the  heart." 

Apparently  the  talk  about  his  scheme  did  Mr.  Milligaru 
good.  He  was  brighter  at  the  close  than  when  he  came, 
and  spoke  hopefully  of  his  coming  interview  with  the 
bishop,  who  had  more  social  insight  than  the  majority 
of  his  brethren  displayed. 

"  Do  you  know,  Mr.  O'Hagan,"  he  said,  as  he  prepared 
to  drive  away,  "  I  am  always  glad  when  the  night  comes 
down  on  Meath?  In  the  daytime  its  rich  desert  wastes 
are  intensely  depressing  to  me,  and  apart  from  Cluain- 
lumney,  I  seem  a  man  alone.  At  night  I  can  picture  the 
grass  ranches  studded  with  homes,  and  alive  with  people ; 
I  can  imagine  I  hear  the  ploughmen's  songs,  and  see  the 
lights  of  a  happy  workers'  town  on  Tara.  God  send  that 
the  men  of  tomorrow  may  see  it  all  without  dreaming. 
At  all  events  I  '11  do  my  part  before  I  go.  The  broad 
acres  are  ready  for  the  people.  God  bless  the  Garden 
City  that  is  to  be." 

The  post  brought  a  letter  from  Maeve.  She  hoped  to 
be  down  on  the  afternoon  train.  The  Boyne  Valley,  she 
caustically  remarked,  had  evidently  developed  new  and 
special  attractions,  which  she  might  be  permitted  to  wit- 


MR.  MULLIGAN'S  CROWNING  SCHEME;  203 

ness.  She  also  wanted  to  translate  a  page  of  Bossuet 
in  peace  and  quietness. 

"  She  will  probably  translate  three  complete  sentences 
and  then  feel  intolerably  good,  and  lecture  us  all  on  our 
sluggish  spirit,"  said  Fergus.  "  We  '11  be  obliged  to  be 
circumspect  now,  and  if  pioneers  and  advanced  theolo 
gians  come  along  there  will  be  a  decided  rise  in  the 
temperature." 

Fergus  decided  to  go  up  again  to  Dublin  on  the  noon 
train.  He  had  work  to  clear  up  for  the  week-end.  Elsie 
could  meet  Maeve  at  the  station,  and  —  he  added  slyly  — 
if  Lord  Strathbarra  were  about  better  hide  him  in  a. cave, 
or  other  secure  place. 

"  No,"  said  Elsie ;  "  I  '11  inveigle  them  into  a  discussion 
on  the  Hebridean  stand  against  Rome,  and  then  climb 
the  nearest  tree,  where  I  can  watch  and  listen  with  pleas 
ure  and  safety.  You  can  rescue  me  when  you  come  back 
in  the  evening." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE   TWO   STANDARDS 


HEN  Fergus  reached  his  office  he 
found  amongst  his  correspondence 
a  long  letter  from  Miss  Alice 
Lefanu.  She  was  still  at  Point 
Loma;  various  matters  had  de 
layed  her  departure  for  Europe, 
and  her  Irish  holiday,  but  she 
hoped  the  way  would  be  shortly 
clear.  He  must  understand,  she 
said,  that  her  visit  was  private, 
what  he  perhaps  would  call  un 
official;  at  any  rate  their  teacher  at  Point  Loma  would 
never  think  of  sending  a  disciple  recklessly  on  a  distant 
missionary  enterprise.  In  the  great  peace  and  the  con 
stant  inspiration  of  the  work  in  California  she  herself 
felt  grave  at  times  over  the  idea  of  turning  to  the 
intellectul  stagnation  and  mental  confusion  that  so  much 
obtained  in  Ireland  —  to  which  she  looked,  however,  with 
infinite  compassion  —  but  there  were  personal  and  family 
reasons  for  the  visit  to  her  native  land ;  and  incidentally 
she  hoped  to  sow  ideas  that  would  bear  fruit  in  Eirinn, 
but  the  method  of  the  sowing  would  no  doubt  surprise 


THE;  TWO  STANDARDS  205 

him.  He  would  not  find  her  the  impetuous  and  wilful 
and  spiritually  undecided  individual  of  other  days.  She 
had  found  the  pathway  to  that  realm  where  the  gods 
abide.  She  had  learned  from  her  leader  that  "If  the 
world  is  ever  to  become  a  better  place  women  must  begin 
to  think  and  act  as  Divine  Souls."  She  had  also  realized 
that  the  selfish  devotee  lives  to  no  purpose ;  and  that  one 
must  step  out  of  sunlight  into  shade  to  make  more  room 
for  others. 

The  numbers  of  Fainne  an  Lae  which  she  had  now 
studied  gave  her  pleasure  and  hope.  Much  that  he 
apparently  had  discovered  very  slowly  and  painfully  for 
himself,  as  well  as  much  in  his  applied  Christianity,  had 
really  been  part  of  the  philosophy  of  life  untold  ages 
ago;  to  East  and  West  it  was  part  of  an  ancient  tale. 
The  ignorant  modern  idea,  now  passing  away,  that  hu 
manity  and  civilization  were  only  a  few  thousand  years 
old  was  ludicrous;  every  advance  in  archaeology,  in  real 
scientific  discovery,  showed  that  it  and  the  notion  that 
man  had  evolved  from  animal  and  savage  ancestry  was 
preposterous.  The  deeper  we  dug  the  more  positive 
and  striking  were  the  relics  and  the  proofs  of  the  buried 
civilizations;  while  from  other  sources  the  true  student 
knew  that  there  had  been  great  Teachers  and  Sages 
who  had  drunk  from  the  same  stream  of  Divine  Wisdom 
aeons  before  the  appearance  of  the  present  world-race. 

While  she  valued  and  understood  the  human  sympathy 
and  spirit  which  he  brought  to  bear  on  the  ordeals  in  the 
Dublin  slums,  and  on  other  sores  and  cancers  in  Irish 
life,  and  appreciated  all  the  efforts  to  remove  them,  she 
was  sure  he  did  not  see  the  problem  whole,  nor  the  great 


206  THE   PLOUGH   AND  T.HE  CROSS 

truth  which  set  it  all  in  a  new  light ;  he  had  forgotten,  or 
did  not  believe,  or  did  not  consciously  realize  the  mighty 
fact  of  reincarnation,  which  was  part  of  the  philosophy 
and  faith  of  their  Gaelic  ancestors.  -The  victims  of  the 
circumstances  he  deplored,  and  his  contemporaries  gen 
erally,  were  at  different  stages  of  the  life-scale  and  at 
different  points  of  evolution.  They  had  many  other  and 
varying  lives  to  lead  in  the  noisy  tuition-place  we  call  the 
world.  This  gave  a  new  and  momentous  significance  to 
the  drama.  She  quoted  one  of  her  own  teachers :  "When 
your  modern  philosophers  will  have  succeeded  in  showing 
to  us  a  good  reason  why  so  many  apparently  innocent 
and  good  men  are  born  only  to  suffer  during  a  whole 
life-time;  why  so  many  are  born  poor  unto  starvation 
in  the  slums  of  great  cities,  abandoned  by  fate  and  men ; 
why,  while  these  are  born  in  the  gutter,  others  open  their 
eyes  to  light  in  palaces ;  while  a  noble  birth  and  fortune 
seem  often  given  to  the  worst  of  men  and  only  rarely 
to  the  worthy ;  while  there  are  beggars  whose  inner  selves 
are  peers  to  the  highest  and  noblest  of  men ;  when  this  and 
much  more  is  satisfactorily  explained  by  either  your  philo 
sophers  or  theologians,  then  only,  but  not  till  then,  you 
will  have  the  right  to  reject  the  theory  of  reincarnation." 
He  ought  to  find  work  in  the  Boyne  Valley  fascinating, 
she  said.  Its  sacred  traditions  and  associations,  the  gods 
the  old  Gaels  felt  and  knew  by  its  waters  and  beneath 
its  greenery  were  no  dreams.  Here  came  in  the  question 
of  a  subtle  brotherhood,  which  most  of  the  moderns  had 
lost,  though  it  was  clearly  realized  by  the  ancients,  the 
Gaels  included.  Brotherhood  at  basis  was  something 
human,  but  we  have  inter-relationships  apart  from  those 


THE)    TWO    STANDARDS  2OJ 

which  are  comprised  within  humanity.  We  enter  into 
these  relationships,  which  are  elementally  divine  and 
universal,  when  we  escape  out  of  our  narrow  and  selfish 
personalism.  With  the  ancients  some  of  these  were 
spoken  of  as  the  gods,  and  ancient  religion  and  science 
were  woven  into  sundry  festivals  and  ceremonies  through 
which  it  was  believed  the  life  of  the  gods  might  be  reached 
and  in  a  sense  assimilated.  Nowadays  in  most  cases  our 
exclusive  selfhood,  our  narrowing  education,  dull  us  to 
the  sense  of  the  greater  Identity  that  encompassed  our 
own.  Thus  the  beauty  and  vastness  of  the  sea  had  no 
direct  place  and  meaning  in  our  schemes  and  philoso 
phies.  We  never  realized  that  there  was  anything  in  it 
to  which  we  were  actually  akin.  It  remained  external,  a 
"  feature  "  of  Nature.  So  with  the  .mountains  —  we 
felt  no  kinship  with  them.  The  old  generous,  ennobling 
relations  and  powers,  as  of  Poseidon  and  the  Mountain 
Gods,  and  Angus  Og  of  the  plains  of  Meath,  had  faded 
out  of  human  minds  in  the  cramping  ages,  and  our 
humanity  in  consequence  was  crippled  and  incomplete. 
In  the  olden  ages  it  was  different,  and  as  one  of  her 
friends  had  said  only  the  other  day,  "  they  understood 
how  in  glorifying  the  gods,  they  were  really  drawing  near 
to  their  own  deeper  greatness.  *  The  corn,  the  vine,  and 
the  young  flowers  —  Demeter,  lacchos,  and  Persephone 
—  they  were  in  me  and  I  was  in  them.'  In  approaching 
them  I  was  dissolving  the  gall  of  selfhood ;  I  was  un 
tying  the  strained  tangles  and  knots  of  my  personality, 
or,  as  you  may  say,  making  myself  as  large  as  all  Greece, 
as  all  the  realms  where  those  three  Bright  Ones  reigned. 
Religion  in  those  times  must  have  meant  such  thoughts 


2O8  THE    PIvOUGH    AND    THE)    CROSS 

as  that,  and  the  big  altruistic  life  that  would  flow  from 
them." 

The  same  friend  had  impressed  upon  them  —  and  it 
was  easy  to  imagine  —  how  the  labor  of  agriculture 
in  those  ancient  days  would  not  have  tended  ever  to 
level  man  with  the  oxen  that  drew  his  plough,  but 
would  have  constantly  clothed  him  with  divinity.  "  Who 
knows  what  may  have  come  to  the  ploughman  as  he 
turned  at  the  end  of  his  row?  He  was  walking  with 
Juno,  with  Athena;  he  may  have  heard  some  message 
from  Demeter  through  the  life-thrilled,  broken  clods 
beneath  his  feet,  or  Apollo  may  have  leaned  down  from 
his  chariot  and  whispered  some  secret  in  his  ear  which 
suddenly  revealed  to  him  —  ah !  what  ?  —  a  sense  of  his 
own  divinity."  • 

Through  Angus  Og  and  his  kin  the  old  Gael,  like  the 
Greek  and  others,  had  a  sense  of  these  divine  and  universal 
relationships,  and  of  the  divinity  in  himself.  Such  phil 
osophy  was  familiar  to  her  in  their  great  home  and  haunt 
of  thought  and  labor  in  the  Far  West.  It  must  color  his 
Boyne  Valley  work  and  hopes,  or  the  work  would  not  be 
deep  and  lasting.  Mere  tilling  for  tilling's  sake  was  a 
slight  beginning.  He  must  help  the  tillers  to  open  their 
eyes  and  hearts,  to  feel  their  kinship  with  all  Nature, 
to  realize  at  the  spade  and  plough  their  own  divinity,  and 
the  divine  end  to  which  they  moved. 

Miss  Lefanu  told  a  good  deal  about  the  work,  the 
schools,  the  theaters,  the  music,  and  above  all  the  Raja 
Yoga  Academy,  at  Point  Loma.  Raja  Yoga,  she  ex 
plained,  meant  "  Kingly  Union  "  —  the  perfect  balance 
of  all  the  faculties,  physical,  mental,  moral  and  spiritual. 


TWO    STANDARDS  2OO, 

The  school,  though  American  in  center,  was  international 
in  character.  Through  it  and  its  branches  the  children 
of  the  race  would  be  taught  the  laws  of  physical  life, 
and  the  laws  of  physical,  moral  and  mental  health  and 
spiritual  unfoldment,  so  that  they  would  learn  to  live 
in  harmony  with  Nature.  The  teachers  and  the  workers 
postulated  throughout  the  perfectibility  of  the  Race, 
and  they  began  in  a  scientific  and  beautiful  way  with 
the  child-character.  She  urged  that  he  would  try  to 
induce  Ireland  to  follow  suit.  A  similar  haunt  of  labor 
and  education  under  the  shadow  of  Tara  was  one  of  the 
ideals  she  hoped  to  live  to  realize.  It  would  be  a  hu 
manized  Mount  Melleray,  and  more  —  with  women  and 
children  and  joyful  work,  and  beautiful  art,  and  the 
culture  of  the  ages  as  well  as  Irish  culture. 

Fergus  thought  it  curious  that  two  such  divergent 
individualities  as  Mr.  Milligan  and  Miss  Lefanu  should 
have  thought  of  a  "  Mount  Melleray  "  —  and  much  more 
—  in  the  Tara  country.  Charmed  as  he  was  with  the 
graphic  and  detailed  description  of  the  work  and  the 
education  in  the  far  Californian  "  Homestead,"  of  which 
so  few  in  Ireland  knew  anything  —  it  had  come  as  a 
revelation  to  himself  not  long  since  —  the  letter  brought 
him  a  certain  troubled  feeling.  True  it  dwelt  on  the 
divinity  and  the  divine  end  of  life;  but,  alas,  to  reach 
and  realize  the  divinity,  whether  in  one  life  or  in  hun 
dreds  —  if  one  accepted  the  age-old  doctrine  of  rein 
carnation —  there  seemed  a  terrible  deal  of  baseness  and 
futility  to  be  shed.  Sometimes,  all  a-sudden  and  for  no 
obvious  reason,  the  sense  of  life's  meaning  and  drift  came 
upon  and  through  him  like  a  wave  of  ecstasy ;  sometimes 


2IO  THE:    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

it  seemed  a  weird,  inscrutable,  and  overwhelmingly  stun 
ning  matter :  so  mysterious  and  awesome  that  it  was 
simply  wonderful  how  one  had  heart  for  the  lightsome 
transient,  and  ultimately  trivial  things  that  filled  up  the 
ordinary  day ;  they  seemed  as  the  lighting  of  pipes  on 
a  mountain  while  lightnings  blazed  and  the  heights  shook 
in  the  thunder  "  like  a  whole  sea  overhead." 

At  this  stage  Mr.  Terence  O'Connellan,  who  had  re 
turned  to  Dublin  from  the  West,  was  "  shown  "  upstairs. 
That  eminent  editor  and  disillusioned  man  walked  in 
and  sat  down  with  apparent  weariness  and  difficulty. 
Trouble  sat  heavy  upon  him,  as  if,  like  Oisin  after  the 
return  from  Tir  na  nOg,  the  touch  of  his  feet  on  the  clay 
of  his  native  land  pressed  the  burden  of  mortality  ever 
and  ever  in  more  awful  wise  upon  him. 

"  Ha !  "  he  said,  with  a  groan  that  seemed  to  come 
from  a  deep  cavern,  "  you  are  looking  twenty  years  older 
than  when  I  saw  you  the  other  morning.  'Tis  extra 
ordinary  how  quickly  people  grow  old  in  this  Land  Where 
Nothing  Happens,  or  at  least  where  the  silence  of  de 
cay  and  doom  is  only  broken  by  an  episcopal  pronounce 
ment  against  something  that  would  like  to  be  up  and 
doing  —  which  is  illogical  and  impossible  in  Ireland. 
I  suppose  their  lordships  have  given  you  notice  of  their 
coming  with  bell,  book  and  candle.  Take  it  calmly.  You 
will  find  a  mail  boat  or  an  express  boat  to  the  other  side 
every  evening.  And  the  English  tyrant  will  treat  you  a 
lot  better  than  the  Irish  one  for  telling  him  the  truth  — 
if  you  are  so  eccentric  as  to  persevere  in  that  absurd 
habit." 

"  If  I  look  care-worn  or  troubled  I  really  cannot  blame 


THE    TWO    STANDARDS  211 

their  lordships/'  said  Fergus.  "  I  've  heard  nothing  from 
them,  though  I  understand  that  they  are  somewhat  con 
cerned  over  certain  friends  of  mine  in  Maynooth." 

"  They  're  not  at  all  concerned,"  Terence  declared 
gloomily.  "  Nothing  gives  your  bishops  concern  except 
an  occasionally  obdurate  British  Ministry.  They  can 
easily  get  their  way  with  men  and  things  in  this  intel 
lectually  lamb-like  land.  They  '11  sweep  off  your  friends 
and  yourself  as  simply  as  a  gardener  gets  clear  of  so 
many  autumn  leaves.  I  almost  expected  to  find  you  all 
in  the  dust-bin  by  this  time  —  you  know  a  friend  of 
bishops  like  me  hears  things  that  are  not  for  ordinary 
ears." 

"  The  wizard  West  set  you  dreaming.  There  's  really 
a  deep  strain  of  poetry  in  your  character,  and  you  'd  have 
reached  the  home  of  the  Muses  long  ago  only  that  neu 
rotic  heroines  and  the  suffering  spouses  of  historic:  royal 
sinners  encountered  you  on  the  way,  touched  your  sus 
ceptible  heart,  and  prevailed  on  you  to  write  their  apo 
logias  for  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries  and 
posterity.  No  Knight  of  the  Middle  Ages  ever  champ 
ioned  half  so  many  ladies  in  distress.  And  you  made 
their  morals  and  characters  as  good  as  new  —  a  crowning 
triumph  of  the  creative  faculty." 

"  I  warned  you  in  London  against  the  frivolity  called 
humor,"  said  Terence  gloomily.  "  Hardly  anybody  in 
England  or  Ireland  understands  it.  Much  of  my  own 
literary  success  is  due  to  the  utter  absence  of  deliberate 
humor  from  my  writings.  I  can't  understand  how  your 
mind  can  be  so  cool  and  callous  as  to  play  in  this  melan 
choly  island.  Humor  in  Ireland  is  as  incongruous  as 


212  THE     PLOUGH     AND    THE}     CROSS 

jocose  epitaphs  on  tombstones.  You  used  to  read  a  good 
deal  of  poetry.  You  know  William  Watson's  line, 

I  too  have  been  through  wintry  terrors. 

Well,  so  have  I,  in  the  last  few  days.  I  saw  no  summer 
but  a  horrible  winter  of  life  and  frozen  fate." 

"  I'm  afraid,"  said  Fergus,  "  that  you  have  not  been 
looking  at  Ireland  at  all,  but  at  a  depressed  and  tortured 
Self.  I  've  been  studying  Ireland  since  from  the  golden 
heart  of  the  Boyne  Valley,  and  I  've  found  her  joyful 
with  life  and  hope." 

"  You  know  something  about  botany  and  something 
about  evolution,"  said  Terence,  still  more  gloomily. 
"  You  know  of  those  once  high  families  of  plants  that 
have  missed  their  way  or  have  deteriorated,  and  now 
shake  and  sigh  in  the  form  of  forlorn  reeds  and  rushes 
by  stagnant  pools  or  lonely  and  melancholy  rivers.  Ire 
land  is  "like  these :  only  worse,  for  she  carries  a  blighted 
humanity,  the  world's  most  awful  example  of  arrested 
development  and  inertia.  She  can  never  ascend  in  the 
scale." 

"  I  am  now  certain  that  you  did  not  see  Ireland  at  all," 
said  Fergus  cheerily.  "  With  all  her  deterioration  and 
drawbacks,  the  most  remarkable  thing  in  her  position 
today  is  her  new  vitality.  The  men  and  the  enthusiasm 
she  has  inspired  are  refreshing.  Yet,  after  all,  is  it  so 
very  remarkable?  If  we  find  so  much  wonder  and  beau 
ty  in  apparently  inanimate  matter,  so  much  exhaustless 
energy  in  a  little  radium,  for  instance,  is  it  strange  that 
we  should  witness  marvels  in  the  mind  of  a  people?" 

"  Oh,  I  met  a  dreaming  madman  or  two,"  said  Terence, 


THE    TWO    STANDARDS  213 

with  the  air  of  a  man  who  felt  that  he  had  left  no 
factor  out  of  count.  "  Like  all  madmen  they  are  making 
themselves  heard.  It  reminds  me  of  shipwrecked  men 
on  a  raft  in  the  ocean  at  the  stage  when  insanity  has 
just  set  in.  They  see  visions  —  the  sea  that  will  soon 
devour  them  seems  an  earthly  paradise,  there  is  a  fair 
and  noble  humanity  about  them,  the  world  is  filled  with 
music.  So  with  your  friends  —  and  yourself.  Poor 
devils!  you  call  your  own  illusions  New  Ireland.  It  is 
the  saddest  and  eeriest  thing  in  Europe." 

"  Yet  I  see  that  one  of  your  weekly  papers  T.  T.  T. 
—  whose  full  name  the  irreverent  say  is  '  Terence's  Terse 
Tattle '  —  announces  an  article  from  your  pen  on  '  The 
Glamor  of  Dublin.'" 

"  Well,  what  of  that  ? "  asked  Terence  moodily. 
"  Doesn't  my  friend  Tree  play  Falstaff  as  easily  as  he 
plays  Hamlet?  A  successful  journalist  is  simply  an 
actor  who  strayed  into  journalism.  Haven't  you  yet 
got  out  of  the  curious  habit  of  pinning  a  man  down  to 
everything  he  says  and  writes?  Talking  of  the  stage, 
I  never  realized  till  I  found  myself  this  time  in  the  bogs 
and  blighted  villages  of  the  West  what  sheltering  temples 
of  solace  to  sad  humanity  are  the  London  theaters. 
You  drive  from  the  grinding  Purgatory  of  Fleet  Street 
through  the  Hell  of  the  Strand,  and  the  moment  you 
reach  the  vestibule  you  feel  a  soothing  lull,  a  luxurious 
warmth,  a  passionate  Pagan  thrill.  By  the  time  you 
have  got  to  your  box  you  have  left  all  the  cruelty  and 
sordidness  of  life  behind  you,  and  for  five  whole  acts, 
whatever  the  sensations  that  are  stirred  in  you,  you 
escape  the  futility  and  inconsequence  of  the  actual  human 


214  THE    PlyOUGH    AND    THE)    CROSS 

story.  There  may  be  a  lovely  lady  beside  you  shedding  the 
ineffable  charm  of  femininity  through  your  atmosphere 
and  your  being,  or  you  may  know  that  later  on  a  beauti 
ful  actress  will  hang  round  your  neck  and  kiss  you 
rapturously.  But  femininity,  or  no  femininity,  the  Lon 
don  theater  is  a  perennial  appeal  to  the  delectable  Pagan 
that  the  preachers  have  tried  to  suppress  in  man.  My 
reviews  and  monologs  would  soon  lose  their  sap  and 
lusciousness  if  I  had  to  live  beyond  the  sound  of  Bow 
Bells  or  outside  the  four-mile  circle.  In  cheerless,  all 
but  theaterless  Ireland  I  'd  feel  like  Ovid  in  the  exiled 
wastes  of  Scythia." 

"  I  'd  ask  you  down  to  the  Boyne  Valley  for  the  week 
end,"  said  Fergus,  "  only  that  it 's  too  simple  for  one  who 
is  so  far  gone  and  has  worked  so  much  against  Nature 
as  you.  But  I  'd  heartily  recommend  you  to  try  a  month 
at  Mount  Melleray.  They  Ve  cured  and  humanized  even 
worse  cases.  You  'd  write  a  wonderful  book  afterwards 
on  the  recovery  of  your  soul  in  the  process.  You  would 
make  a  bigger  sensation  in  intellectual  Europe  than 
Huysman  himself." 

"  I  spent  twenty  years  trying  to  escape  from  my  soul," 
said  Terence  with  a  groan.  "  It  was  a  terrible  and  most 
unreasonable  companion.  But  you  need  not  think  that 
I  'm  callous  even  yet.  The  horror  of  life  comes  over 
me  still,  like  a  drove  of  devils  in  the  darkness,  and  I  'd 
welcome  utter  annihilation  to  escape  it.  You  young  folk 
with  airy-fairy  temperaments  are  for  ever  misunder 
standing  me.  You  have  neither  my  terrors  nor  my 
temptations " 

"  I  believe  that  Mount  Melleray  would  bring  you  balm 


TWO    STANDARDS  215 

and  calm/'  said  Fergus,  "  and  I  know  you  'd  be  welcome. 
"Tisn't  often  they  have  so  famous  a  visitor  at  the  guest 
house,  though  fame  counts  for  nothing  with  the  good 
monks.  I  wish  you  would  go  down  and  make  the 
'  retreat/  I  'm  greatly  interested  in  the  curative  side  of 
Mount  Melleray,  from  all  I  hear,  and  I  'd  be  keenly 
interested  to  see  how  it  would  work  out  in  your  complex 
case." 

"  I  have  far  more  momentous  work  in  Dublin,  and  it 
will  keep  me  a  few  days  more  from  my  beloved  theaters, 
and  delay  my  release  from  the  devils  that  haunt  me  when 
I  get  out  into  lonely  and  melancholy  places/'  Terence 
answered  sadly.  "  I  have  to  wait  on  and  gather  the  will 
and  take  the  commands  of  a  very  distinguished  ecclesias 
tic.  He  will  communicate  the  desires  of  his  brethren  in 
the  Hierarchy  to  me,  and  I  am  to  place  them  in  detail 
before  the  Party  leaders,  and  act  upon  them  in  connexion 
with  the  Irish  political  organization  which  I  boss  in  Great 
Britain.  The  situation  is  what  you  would  call  delicate." 

"  This  is  interesting,"  said  Fergus,  "  and  the  idea  of 
the  bishops  placing  so  much  trust  in  you  is  an  exquisite 
irony/' 

"  I  have  not  said  that  they  trust  me,  or  the  Party 
either,"  responded  Terence  frankly.  "  But  they  use 
us,  and  politically  we  have  to  trot  to  the  crack  of  the 
episcopal  whip.  Their  lordships  want  the  Party  to  make 
a  special  burst  for  some  time  to  come  on  English  educa 
tion  questions,  and  your  daily  papers  will  almost  burst 
themselves  with  praise  of  our  tactics  and  our  eloquence 
and  our  '  glorious  work  '  for  the  '  children  of  the  poor 
Irish  Catholic  exile'  —  who  'd  get  far  better  terms  from 


2i6  THE   PLOUGH   AND  THE   CROSS 

the  British  if  we  didn't  interfere  and  deny  the  Briton 
Home  Rule  in  his  own  educational  affairs.  All  this  will 
turn  the  eyes  of  your  innocent  countrymen  on  Great 
Britain,  and  during  this  happy  state  of  things  your 
bishops  will  take  a  quiet  opportunity  of  knocking  some 
people  on  the  head  in  Ireland.  That  I  gather  is  the 
general  scheme,  but  I  must  carefully  take  instructions 
as  to  the  campaign." 

"  I  don't  think  the  bishops  entirely  realize  the  New 
Ireland  they  have  to  deal  with,"  said  Fergus. 

"  I  think  they  're  going  to  too  much  trouble,"  respond 
ed  Terence.  "If  they  let  it  alone  this  poor  crazy  '  New 
Ireland  '  would  soon  discover  it  was  only  dreaming  and 
would  become  part  of  the  general  bleakness  and  melan 
choly.  But  their  lordships  got  frightened  over  some  bold, 
bad  ideas  of  independence  and  self-reliance  developed 
in  Gaelic  League  branches,  and  now  some  of  you  are 
talking  about  your  right  to  have  a  look-in  regarding  the 
management  of  the  schools  you  support,  and  bold,  bad 
Maynooth  men  are  asking  questions  about  the  nature 
of  inspiration  and  the  flames  of  Hell.  In  fact,  some  of 
you  are  coming  to  take  the  idea  of  freedom  seriously, 
and  have  got  to  be  put  in  your  proper  places.  You  '11 
probably  be  an  early  victim  yourself,  but  that  will  rather 
please  me,  for  then  you  '11  be  driven  to  leave  Ireland  — 
I  regard  you  as  lost  in  this  land  of  death-in-life.  'Tis  a 
nuisance,  however,  that  ye  are  the  means  of  delaying 
me  here.  Famous  'defender  of  the  faith'  and  'enemy 
of  the  secularization  of  the  schools'  though  I  am,  I  do 
not  feel  in  my  element  in  an  audience  with  a  distinguished 
ecclesiastic,  even  though  I  know  he  has  a  decided  journal- 


THIS    TWO    STANDARDS  217 

istic  bent,   and  practically  directs  the  policy  of  one  of 
your  daily  papers." 

"  Taking  all  you  say  as  literally  correct,  is  not  your 
position  rather  sorry  and  undignified?"  Fergus  asked. 
"  On  your  own  showing  you  adopt  a  course  you  do  not 
believe  in  just  because  you  are  pressed  by  bishops ;  and 
at  the  same  time  you  realize  that  your  action  may  help 
indirectly  to  stifle  thought  and  mar  brave  effort  in  your 
native  land." 

Terence  groaned  and  rose. 

"  I  can  warn  you  but  I  can't  give  you  sense,"  he  said 
fretfully.  "  You  apparently  are  under  the  impression 
that  high  politics  can  be  conducted  in  a  straightforward 
way!  And  you  imagine  that  episcopal  policy,  parlia 
mentary  policy,  and  imperial  policy  must  take  count  of 
the  fact  that  a  few  young  priests  and  a  few  young 
laymen  have  decided  to  do  a  little  thinking  in  Dublin, 
the  Boyne  Valley,  the  Bog  of  Allen,  and  other  remote 
places.  I  wonder  if  history  has  any  parallel  to  the 
dreamers  of  little  Ireland?" 

"  I  think  the  dreamers  of  little  Judea  went  farther," 
said  Fergus  with  a  smile,  as  he  shook  hands  with 
Terence. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
MAEVE  AND  ELSIE  COMPARE  NOTES 

T  was  Saturday  afternoon  after  all  when 
Maeve  reached  the  Boyne  Valley.  Fergus 
professed  to  feel  alarmed  at  her  haste, 
declaring  that  her  intellectual  balance  must 
have  been  broken  in  some  rude  way;  for 
to  be  only  twenty-four  hours  late  was 
an  ominous  new  departure  on  her  part, 
betraying  an  unguided  and  reckless  spirit. 
Jesting  apart,  she  seemed  somewhat  excit 
ed,  but  she  answered  with  a  caustic  calm. 
At  the  approach  of  sunset  she  was  seated 
with  Elsie  at  a  bedroom  window  that  commanded  a  broad 
view  of  garden  and  greenery.  They  had  retired  there  for 
a  little  chat,  of  the  intimate,  meandering  kind  that  they 
loved.  They  had  now  spent  two  hours  thereat,  and  felt 
that  they  had  made  a  good  beginning.  Maeve  had  laid 
her  glasses  aside,  and  her  eyes  looked  soft,  alluringly 
confiding,  and  delicately  roguish.  Elsie  rounded  off  most 
sentences  with  rippling  laughter.  Sometimes  it  reached 
Fergus  away  at  the  end  of  his  garden.  He  was  in  his 
shirt-sleeves,  spade  in  hand,  reducing  to  artistic  propor 
tions  a  piece  of  an  old  ditch  that  offended  the  aesthetic 


MAEVE    AND    ELSIE)    COMPARE    NOTES 

eye,  to  say  nothing  of  the  up-to-date  agricultural  sense. 
He  felt  humiliated  in  a  mild  way  at  the  thought  of  the 
clumsy  ditches  and  other  haphazard  and  primitive  things 
that  satisfied  the  modern  farmer  and  modern  man  gener 
ally.  It  was  a  poor  tribute  to  evolution  ages  after  the 
Gael's  great  handiwork  and  Plato's  impassioned  contem 
plation  of  the  beautiful. 

"  Elsie!  "  cried  Maeve  suddenly,  in  a  tone  of  reproof, 
designed  to  do  duty  for  both  their  consciences,  "  I  'm 
afraid  that  we  have  been  back-biting!  Isn't  it  awful? 
And  we  supposed  to  be  so  intellectual,  and  such  severe 
moralists  !  —  I,  at  any  rate.  In  Paris,  by  .all  accounts, 
you  are  not  supposed  to  be  so  particular." 

"  We  '11  call  it  artistic  dissection  of  character,"  said 
Elsie.  "  It 's  supposed  to  betoken  perspicacity  and  clarity, 
and  to  be  a  modern  intellectual  development.  The  French 
and  Irish  excel  in  it  —  the  French  in  causeries,  the  Irish 
in  fireside  and  boudoir  conversations." 

"  It 's  pleasant  to  open  the  heart  to  an  understanding 
soul  now  and  then,  a  soul  that  will  see  the  comedy  in 
what  crude  people  would  consider  impish  or  even  mali 
cious,"  declared  Maeve.  "  Most  of  the  time  one  only 
gets  the  opportunity  to  open  the  temper.  One  has  to  be 
severe  with  the  contemporary  world,  lay  and  clerical.  If 
the  lot  of  them  saw  the  hidden  oasis  of  good-nature  in 
our  desert  of  reserve  and  severity  they  would  presume 
too  much.  I  'm  afraid,"  she  added,  with  a  far-away 
.look  in  her  eyes,  "that  I  must  have  been  off  my  guard 
lately." 

Elsie's  eyes  sparkled  mischievously. 

"  That  means  a  romance  —  I  know  by  your  eyes,"  she 


22O  THE)    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

said  insinuatingly.  "  Own  up,  Maeve !  Who  is  the  soul- 
smitten  intrepid  young  man  ?  I  know  he  must  be  young ; 
your  eyes  couldn't  shine  that  way  for  anyone  much  above 
twenty  —  thirty  at  the  very  outside." 

"  If  they  shine  they  are  playing  me  false,"  said  Maeve, 
with  a  smile.  "  But  I  won't  deprive  you  of  the  interest 
ing  secret.  Of  course  you  remember  that  young  rascal, 
Arthur  O'Mara?" 

"  I  should  think  so,"  answered  Elsie.  "  Why  he  was  in 
love  with  me  in  my  school  days.  You  need  not  be  jealous, 
however  —  or,  at  least,  not  of  me  alone.  There  were 
about  six  other  girls  in  a  few  years.  You  lived  much 
in  the  moon  then,  Maeve,  and  didn't  notice  mundane  and 
parochial  affairs." 

"  The  young  scamp !  "  said  Maeve.  "  Had  I  known  all 
that  I  'd  have  boxed  his  ears.  I  thought  'twas  '  love's 
young  dream,'  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  He  has  plagued 
me  for  the  last  few  days,  and  this  very  morning  he 
declared  that  if  I  didn't  marry  him  his  dead  body  would 
be  found  on  the  waters  off  Howth,  where  he  's  camping 
out  and  writing  poetry  since  he  left  Maynooth.  He  vowed 
that  he  'd  hurl  himself  off  the  cliffs  in  the  moonlight. 
I  've  been  really  agitated  over  his  condition,  and  thought 
it  cold  and  selfish  to  come  away  to  the  peace  of  the  Boyne 
Valley." 

Elsie's  laughter  must  have  gone  in  rippling  music  as 
far  as  Fergus.  He  looked  up  from  his  digging. 

"  You  've  shattered  an  illusion  of  mine,"  she  said.     "  I  . 
never  thought  your  heart  was  so  responsive  and  sensitive. 
Why  you  are  as  human  as  the  rest  of  us." 

"  Don't  be  a  goose,  Elsie/'  said  Maeve,  in  sedate  re- 


AND  KiySiE   COMPARE:   NOTES  221 

proof.  "  Of  course  these  young  men  are  a  nuisance,  and 
the  bedraggled  thing  they  call  love  is  unseemly;  but 
somehow  it  is  not  easy  to  repress  a  curious  interest  in  a 
person  who  is  ready  to  die  for  you." 

"And  takes  a  whole  lifetime  getting  ready!  Beats 
utterly  a  woman  getting  ready  to  go  to  a  ball " 

"  Cynic ! "  said  Maeve,  laughing.  "  Well,  Arthur 
O'Mara  is  a  strange  case  anyway.  He  utters  the  most 
impassioned,  and  poetical,,  and  erratic  sentiments,  and 
has  some  new  hare-brained  scheme  every  time  I  see  him. 
His  soul  is  in  an  awful  way,  and  if  his  sentiments  were 
known  he  'd  be  simply  excommunicated.  I  hope  he  won't 
start  putting  them  into  poetry." 

"  Oh,  I  thought  he  was  going  to  die,"  said  Elsie  archly. 
"  Turning  to  poetry  —  the  sort  of  poetry  that  young  men 
write  when  they  are  in  love  —  is  sheer  anticlimax." 

"  'Tis  no  laughing  matter,  Elsie,"  said  Maeve  judicious 
ly.  "  Very  self-centered  as  we  are  in  ways  we  have 
moral  duties  towards  all  our  neighbors " 

"  Curates,  particularly,"  Elsie  suggested. 

"  You  are  getting  into  one  of  your  impish  moods.  Yes ; 
we  have  duties.  And  though  we  may  not  be  able  to 
respond  to  the  extravagances  of  the  young  men  who 
believe  they  love  us  —  and  though  we  may  have  to  be 
very  severe  with  them  when  the  fever  gets  the  better  of 
them,  yet  we  are  bound  to  find  subtle,  unobtrusive  but 
decisive  ways  of  helping  them.  I  lecture  Arthur  severely 
—  but  I  want  very  much  to  smooth  his  path  all  the  same. 
I  fear  it  will  be  an  erratic  and  troubled  path." 

"  Why,  Maeve,  this  most  considerate  and  original  philo 
sophy  is  quite  a  new  revelation  of  your  character.  I  can't 


222  THE    PIvOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

tell  you  how  impressive  and  chastening  it  is  to  me.  But 
have  you  considered  where  it  will  lead  you  ?  —  into  love 
and^  marriage,  almost  for  a  certainty." 

Maeve  smiled  —  and  then  shook  her  head  with  a  certain 
sadness. 

"  I  have  a  terrible  insight  into  myself,"  she  said.  "  I  '11 
certainly  never  marry.  The  ordeal  before  me  is  vastly 
different.  I  could  tell  you  what  would  astonish  you. 
I  won't  though  —  not  yet,  at  all  events.  But  what  about 
yourself?  I'd  like  to  cross-examine  you  in  a  friendly 
way." 

"  On  the  whole,  when  I  have  the  heart  and  courage  to 
look  down  into  the  cavern  of  what  I  call  my  character,  I 
don't  know  what  to  think  of  myself/'  said  Elsie,  assuming 
a  solemn  expression  which  gave  her  face  a  piquancy  that 
would  be  the  charm  and  despair  of  an  artist ;  "  I  feel  a 
mixture  of  owl  and  skylark.  The  skylark  so  far  has  got 
the  bigger  show.  I  sometimes  wish  I  could  suppress  the 
owl,"  she  added  ruefully,  "  though  I  am  not  without  a 
certain  affection  for  that  gloomy  bird  —  that  darker  part 
of  the  tangled  entity." 

Maeve  nodded  in  an  expressive  way  in  the  direction 
of  Fergus. 

"  He  does  not  know  anything  about  the  owl/'  said  Elsie 
promptly.  "  He  would  laugh  at  the  idea  that  I  am  any 
thing  but  a  fairy  skylark.  He  has  too  much  imagination 
and  not  enough  heart.  If  he  could  turn  some  of  the 
intensity  of  his  mind  into  his  heart  he  would  be " 

"  Oh,  I  think  you  're  judging  rashly,"  interposed 
Maeve.  "  He  has  plenty  of  heart,  though  it 's  not  usually 
on  view,  so  to  say.  If  he  hadn't  he  would  not  worry  so 


AND    EI,SIE    COMPARE    NOTES  223 

much  about  social  rights  and  wrongs.  I  've  known  him 
to  get  quite  afflicted  in  soul  over  the  sight  of  the  children 
in  the  Dublin  streets,  and  anybody  who  is  touched  by  the 
wrongs  and  the  neglect  of  little  children  cannot  be  said 
to  be  without  heart." 

"  Fergus  has  heart  go  leor  in  a  general  way,"  said 
Elsie.  "  You  didn't  let  me  finish.  When  I  spoke  about 
intensity  of  heart,  I  meant  for  me.  Of  course,  I  tell  him 
not  to  be  foolish,  and  that  the  best  ideal  is  affectionate 
friendship,  and  all  that,  and  I  mean  it,  at  least  up  to  a 
point ;  but  it 's  a  little  disappointing  to  be  taken  readily 
at  my  word." 

"  I  'm  not  at  all  sure  that  he  takes  you  at  your  word 
in  that  matter,"  said  Maeve,  "  though  I  'm  not  going  to 
try  to  analyse  the  sort  of  feeling  you  have  for  each  other. 
The  effort  would  simply  make  my  brain  dizzy.  I  don't 
believe  that  you  know  what  the  feeling  is  yourselves.  I 
might  put  it  this  way.  You  're  both  ultra-idealistic,  and 
by  instinct  and  reasoning  you  both  rebel  against  the 
concentrated  selfishness  of  love,  and  the  material  realiza 
tion  of  it.  But  Nature,  which  has  larger  ideals  and  ends 
— though  Nature  might  be  more  dignified  in  some  respects 
—  complicates  the  matter  for  each  of  you  by  the  personal 
attraction  of  the  other.  It 's  an  interesting  situation,  quite 
outside  average  experience  —  but  in  such  a  case  Nature 
is  almost  certain  to  win." 

"  Would  you  mind  writing  that  down  for  me,  Maeve  ?  " 
said  Elsie  quizzically.  "  Such  subtle  philosophy  should 
not  be  lost,  and  anyhow  it  demands  thinking  over.  The 
situation,  as  you  call  it,  is  much  more  easily  explained. 
Fergus  and  I  are  affectionate  in  our  feelings  towards 


224  TH£     PLOUGH     AND    THE    CROSS 

each  other.  But  I  have  a  wild  spirit  of  freedom,  and  he 
is  devoted  to  a  cause.  So,  affectionate  as  we  are,  we  are 
as  the  poles  apart  in  one  sense.  I  own  that  at  times  my 
heart  yearns  for  a  little  more  human  warmth  in  Fergus, 
directed  to  and  concentrated  on  my  lone  little  self.  Then 
I  am  what  I  suppose  you  would  call  human  and  womanly. 
But  in  due  course  the  owl  in  me  asserts  its  wicked, 
solitary  self,  and  I  shrink  from  humanity.  Later  on  I  am 
all  skylark,  rejoicing  in  the  bonny  blue  and  freedom, 
and  all  my  heart  a  song.  Now,  what  do  you  think  ?  " 

"  That  both  yourself  and  the  person  who  feels  affec 
tionately  towards  you  are  at  once  to  be  envied  and  pitied," 
Maeve  declared.  "  But  Fergus  is  quite  as  peculiar  as 
you,  and  you  '11  come  to  terms  somehow.  I  wish  ye 
would  do  so  quickly,  for  particular  reasons  of  my  own. 
But  what  of  poor  me  ?  I  'm  a  housekeeper  with  a  mystical 
temperament  and  a  critical  temper.  So  I  'm  out  of  my 
element,  and  out  of  tune  with  myself.  Love  means 
nothing  to  me,  and  yet  here  's  a  foolish  young  man  de 
claring  that  he  '11  drown  himself  for  my  sake.  I  shudder 
when  I  think  of  the  waves  of  Howth." 

Elsie's  laughter  rang  musically. 

"  Yes ;  he  '11  throw  himself  into  the  waves  of  Howth," 
she  said,  "  but  they  '11  be  heather  waves,  and  the  rolling 
will  at  least  be  healthy  exercise,  and  must  do  him  good." 

"  Wonderfully  affectionate  as  you  are  you  take  a  cruel 
and  cynical  view  of  human  nature  sometimes,"  said  Maeve 
complainingly. 

"  It 's  that  villainous  owl,"  said  Elsie  laughing.  "  It 
must  get  a  chance  even  in  the  Boyne  Valley.  The  skylark 
has  been  dominant  for  quite  a  long  spell.  But  you  '11  find 


AND    ELSIE    COMPARE    NOTES  225 

that  the  owl  is  entirely  correct  about  Arthur  O'Mara.  A 
change  of  the  moon  is  due  tomorrow  or  after,  and  he  '11 
be  found  writing  poetry  —  to  another  girl." 

"  Oh,  Paris,  Paris !  "  said  Maeve  protestingly. 

"  Paris  has  nothing  to  do  with  it,"  replied  Elsie,  bend 
ing  over  and  laying  her  hand  gaily  on  Maeve's  shoulder, 
"it's  only  insight  and  a  little ^ patient  study  of  human 
nature." 

"  Let  us  come  back  to  yourself  and  Fergus,"  said 
Maeve.  "  This  intellectual  comedy  between  you  is  doubt 
less  very  attractive,  but  I  wish  ye  'd  take  a  fit  of  serious 
ness  and  get  married.  It  would  give  both  of  you  the 
settled  strain  that  is  needed  to  complete  your  characters. 
I  don't  want  to  see  your  lives  spoiled,  and  there  are  some 
things  pointing  that  way  at  present  which  make  me 
uneasy.  What  was  said  about  Lord  Strathbarra  at 
tea-time  may  be  mere  romance,  though  you  certainly 
blushed " 

"  With  pride,  perhaps,  at  the  prospect  of  the  title," 
suggested  Elsie. 

"  Be  serious,  Elsie !  Even  the  bare  mention  of  you  in 
connexion  with  that  insidious  mischief-maker  in  the 
Church  distresses  me.  But  I  am  far  more  troubled  about 
Fergus.  He  is  on  a  very  dangeroi^  road  at  present,  and 
I  'm  afraid  every  day  that  I  '11  hear  of  some  painful  clash 
between  himself  and  those  mad  friends  of  his  and  the 
Church  authorities.  He  positively  expects  bishops  to 
give  reasons  for  their  opinions  and  actions !  As  a  wife 
you  could  lead  him  away  delightfully  from  this  unreason 
and  turmoil " 

"  Or  I  might  accentuate  the  trouble,"  said  Elsie. 


226  THE)   PLOUGH   AND  THE   CROSS 

"  You  're  too  sweet  and  affectionate  for  that,  Elsie. 
Then  there  's  that  revolutionary  American  woman  who  's 
coming  over.  I  wish  she  wasn't  "  —  Maeve  shook  her 
shoulders,  and  spoke  with  a  touch  of  vehemence  —  "  her 
former  influence  on  Fergus  was  altogether  disturbing  and 
unnatural." 

"  The  mystery  deepens,"  said  Elsie.  "  Who  is  this 
formidable  American  person  anyway?" 

"  Miss  Lefanu,  of  course.  Fergus,  I  believe,  has  never 
been  the  same  since  he  first  knew  her.  Attractive  and 
clever  as  s4ie  is,  she  has  been  probably  his  worst  enemy. 
She  turned  his  thoughts  to  all  sorts  of  outlandish  ideas, 
Oriental  and  otherwise,  and  stirred  things  in  his  mind 
that  have  never  been  stilled  since.  Her  visit  to  Ireland  at 
such  a  disturbing  time  is  a  terrible  misfortune,  and  you 
can  see  my  anxiety  at  the  idea  of  Fergus  being  thrown 
again  under  her  influence." 

"  Well,  not  too  clearly,"  said  Elsie ;  "  your  sense  of 
disaster  seems  to  be  a  great  deal  more  acute  than  mine." 

Elsie  was  wondering  why  she  had  never  been  told 
anything  about  Miss  Lefanu.  She  did  not  care  to  admit 
so  much  to  Maeve  directly,  and  she  was  anxious  to  gain 
information  in  a  quiet  way. 

Miss  Lefanu  was  a  theme  on  which  Maeve  could 
discourse  at  great  length  with  caustic  eloquence.  She 
now  summed  up  that  lady's  beliefs  and  ideas  and  designs 
in  a  fashion  that  would  certainly  have  surprised  herself, 
and  depicted  her  influence  on  Fergus  in  colors  that  might 
have  surprised  her  still  more. 

Why  had  Fergus  never  told  her  of  Miss  Lefanu  ?  Why 
had  he  kept  silent  about  her  coming  visit?  What  was 


MAEVE    AND    ELSIE)    COMPARE    NOTES  227 

the  real  secret  of  her  influence?  Elsie  O'Kennedy  asked 
herself  these  questions  again  and  again,  as  she  listened 
in  the  twilight.  She  could  not  answer  them,  but  she  was 
conscious  of  something  new  and  oppressive  in  life.  .  .  . 

After  supper  Maeve  and  Elsie  seated  themselves  at  a 
small  table  and  busied  themselves  with  mysterious  work 
which  Fergus  was  genially  informed  was  none  of  his 
business.  He  was  told  that  during  its  performance  he 
could  sit  in  the  rocking-chair  and  go  to  sleep  after  his 
exacting  labor  on  the  land.  He  gathered,  however,  that 
the  work  had  something  to  do  with  the  light  and  airy 
appurtenances  of  feminine  Sunday  garb,  and  on  these 
things  Maeve  and  Elsie  always  worked  like  conscious  and 
reverential  artists.  He  took  the  rocking-chair,  and  ar 
ranged  it  so  that  from  his  pleasant  position  he  could 
watch  their  artistry  and  their  expression.  He  did  not 
want  to  go  to  sleep;  he  wanted  to  let  his  imagination 
drift  into  all  sorts  of  lotus-lands  in  a  zig-zag,  unhurrying, 
irresponsible  way.  It  was  his  week-end  form  of  recrea 
tion. 

He  was  able  in  such  times  to  detach  his  mind  from  all 
the  books  he  had  read,  and  all  the  theories  of  life  and 
things  he  had  ever  known  to  be  advocated,  and  from  all 
the  circumstances  of  daily  work  and  all  the  problems 
before  him,  and  to  let  his  imagination  go  fresh  and  sport 
ive  through  the  universe.  It  might  be  the  imagination  of 
the  primeval  man,  bursting  wonderingly  into  the  surprises 
of  the  untilled,  untraveled  planet  and  all  the  radiance  of 
the  world's  morning,  unburdened  and  unbroken  by  all 
the  lore  and  losses  and  doubts  and  searchings  of  the 
aeons.  It  knew  no  empires,  no  philosophies,  no  civiliza- 


228  THE:   PLOUGH   AND  THE:   CROSS 

tions,  they  were  yet  unborn  and  undreamed  of.  Stars 
to  it  were  the  same  as  flowers,  apple-blossoms  the  same 
as  gold-mines,  bees  the  same  as  the  fairies  that  shook  the 
glistening  grasses,  the  butter-cup  the  same  as  the  sun  — 
all  parts  of  the  universal  wonder  that  he  did  not  in  the 
least  desire  to  explain.  He  had  the  planet  and  the  accom 
panying  firmament  to  himself ;  the  morning  twilight  of 
time  had  not  begun,  and  tradition  had  not  started  on  its 
course.  Created  beauty  had  just  burst  into  being  at  the 
Creator's  thought  and  wondered  at  herself. 

Tonight,  indeed,  he  found  it  agreeably  difficult  at  first 
to  give  the  slip  to  time  and  tide  and  get  back  over  the 
thousand  aeons  to  the  dews  and  morning  breezes  of  the 
prime.  The  week's  men  and  concerns  coaxed  him  insinu 
atingly  to  discuss  themselves  as  he  tried  to  steal  on  tip-toe, 
as  it  were,  out  of  urgent  actuality.  Mr.  Milligan,  with 
beaming  eye  and  courtly  gesture,  drew  his  attention  to 
the  path  of  golden  ploughshares  in  the  Boyne  Valley  and 
the  new-age  argosies  that  came  up  the  canal,  now  wide  as 
an  inland  sea,  and  then  urged  him  to  come  in  his  diamond 
motor-car  to  the  opening  of  the  twentieth-century  Feis  on 
exultant  Tara.  When  he  had  passed  from  these,  Lord 
Strathbarra  stood  in  his  path  with  a  gloriously  illuminated 
volume,  the  first  edition,  straight  from  the  Hebridean 
Press,  of  Eusebius  in  modern  Irish.  However,  he  divert 
ed  the  proud  author's  attention  to  a  heliograph  message 
announcing  the  shelling  of  his  Hebridean  isle  by  the 
Papal  navy,  and  immediately  escaped.  But  he  next  en 
countered  Father  Martin  Murray  in  archiepiscopal  guise 
proceeding  on  his  first  visitation  to  the  newly-constituted 
arch-diocese  of  Tara.  With  these  and  other  fantastic 


AND    I&SIE    COMPARlv    NOTES  22Q 

imaginings  and  pictures  it  was  a  long  time  before  his 
fancy  got  free,  and  was  able  to  revel  in  the  primeval  light 
and  loneliness  before  the  ordeal  of  humanity  began.  .  .  . 

Fergus  O'Hagan  wondered  at  the  extraordinary  sense 
of  ecstasy  that  possessed  him  for  a  moment,  which  had 
the  suggestion  of  being  an  age.  Then  a  peal  of  musical 
laughter  rang  in  his  ears.  He  saw  that  Elsie  was  kneeling 
beside  the  rocking-chair,  a  curiously  soft  yet  quizzical 
look  in  her  eyes.  He  knew  now  that  he  had  dozed  off  to 
sleep  after  the  pranks  and  play  of  fancy,  but  he  marveled 
that  the  awaking  sense  was  so  exquisite.  The  whole  soul 
for  the  moment  seemed  to  have  asserted  itself  in  a  spirit 
ualized  body,  and  to  have  looked  through  the  universe  of 
mind  and  matter  with  understanding  eyes. 

"  I  had  to  laugh  at  you  for  going  to  sleep  —  a  conse 
quence,  I  suppose,  of  your  sunset  spell  with  the  spade," 
said  Elsie,  "  and  then  I  felt  ashamed  of  myself,  for  you 
really  looked  quite  human  and  affectionate  in  slumber. 
Maeve  has  gone  upstairs  with  tired,  accusing  eyes,  after 
blaming  me  for  keeping  her  gossiping  an  hour  after  her 
natural  time.  She  told  me  to  shake  you  up,  and  that 
you  'd  be  mightily  cross." 

She  was  puzzled  and  surprised  by  the  strange,  far-off, 
spell-struck  look  in  his  eyes  as  he  sat  up  and  his  hands 
played  with  her  hands. 

"  I  Ve  often  had  moments,"  he  said,  "  when  time, 
trials,  and  death  seemed  to  matter  nothing,  but  I  never 
had  such'  a  sheer  amazing  sense  of  joy  as  now  at  waking 
up,  and  you  in  a  curious  way  seemed  to  be  in  and  through 
it  like  fragrance  in  flowers.  What  was  the  hidden  mean 
ing  of  your  coming  to  Ireland?  Outside  ourselves  or 


230  THE  PiyOUGH   AND  THE:   CROSS 

above  the  normal  selves  we  know,  some  mysterious  and 
magical  forces  are  at  work  to  ends  we  cannot  under 
stand." 

"  I  '11  become  quite  awed  if  you  say  any  more  in  this 
strain,"  said  Elsie,  smiling  softly.  "  I  Ve  heard  wonder 
ful  things  of  the  Boyne  Valley  in  the  days  of  Angus  Og, 
or  as  you  would  say  in  the  days  when  folk  had  vision 
enough  to  see  him ;  but  the  Boyne  Valley  of  today  seems 
more  '  haunted  '  than  ever." 

"  The  people  we  meet  in  O'Connell  Street,  and  the 
people  who  come  in  electric  cars  from  Dalkey  might  smile 
if  I  told  them  in  the  sober  day  of  things  I  feel  and  know," 
said  Fergus.  "  But  down  here  on  the  great,  lone  land 
the  real  Self  gets  a  chance  to  open  the  gates  of  Wonder 
and  to  feel  the  drama  that  is  coming.  There  will  be 
momentous  things  in  Ireland  —  if  not  in  the  light,  at  any 
rate  in  the  souls  of  many  men  and  women." 

Maeve  returned  downstairs  with  words  of  judicial 
reproof  for  people  who  persisted  in  keeping  such  uncanny 
and  impossible  hours.  Having  delivered  her  little  lecture 
she  sat  down  in  her  restful  way,  and  for  another  hour 
with  the  familiar  blending  of  gravity  and  gaiety,  they 
discussed  the  things  of  their  inner  and  outer  spheres, 
and  felt  so  alert  and  interested  at  the  close  that  it  seemed 
a  pity  to  retire.  In  days  when  drama  of  which  they 
little  dreamed  had  come,  they  often  recalled  that  kindly, 
heart-opening  seanchus  between  night  and  dawn. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

'S    CAPTURED    HAT 


N  Sunday  night  at  an  early  stage 
Maeve  lapsed  into  that  aloof  and 
thoughtful  mood  which  was  the  call 
to  her  to  translate  a  little  Bossuet. 
Fergus  wanted  to  see  Father  Kenealy 
specially,  and  suggested  to  Elsie  the 
charm  of  a  walk  to  Baile  na  Boinne. 
She  affected  to  be  duly  impressed, 
and  they  went  forth. 

She  wanted  an  opportunity  of  ask 
ing  him  about  Miss  Alice  Lefanu.  She  had  decided  that 
she  would  begin,  and  continue,  and  end,  her  remarks  in 
a  frivolous  and  chaffing  spirit.  His  secrecy  had  been 
unwonted  and  unkind  and  unaccountable,  but  she  would 
treat  it  all  as  sheer  comedy.  That  would  serve  him  right, 
and  anything  else,  she  felt,  would  be  preposterous  and 
undignified. 

But  somehow  she  found  it  impossible  to  begin.  The 
saucy  query,  the  facetious  suggestion,  would  not  come 
naturally.  And  she  shrank  from  the  direct  and  serious 
line.  She  felt  perplexed  and  uncomfortable,,  and  a  little 
indignant. 


232  THE  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

As  they  walked  slowly  in  the  moonlight  along  the 
lonely  road  towards  the  town,  they  were  suddenly  startled 
by  a  cry.  Looking  forward  in  the  direction  from  which 
it  proceeded  they  saw  three  figures.  In  a  few  moments, 
one  of  the  figures  —  that  of  a  young  man  —  jumped  over 
the  hedge  and  was  lost  to  sight.  A  second  figure  rushed 
towards  them.  It  was  that  of  a  young  girl.  She  was 
hatless,  unnerved,  excited.  Sobbing,  she  swept  past  them. 
The  third  figure  hurried  in  her  wake.  Fergus  presently 
recognized  it  as  that  of  Father  Finnegan,  the  chief  pastor 
of  Baile  na  Boinne.  Father  Finnegan,  who  held  a  girl's 
hat  in  his  grip,  was  also  apparently  a  little  excited  too. 

He  stopped  suddenly  when  he  got  to  Fergus  and  Elsie, 
and  as  he  tried  to  take  hold  of  the  latter's  hat  exclaimed : 

"A  nice  sort  of  girl,  indeed !  Out  on  the  roads  at  night ! 
Who " 

Elsie  drew  back  indignantly,  and  Fergus  caught  hold 
of  Father  Finnegan's  extended  hand. 

"  You  've  made  a  mistake  this  time,  Father  Finnegan," 
he  said.  "  You  are  not  now  dealing  with  any  of  the 
slaves  of  Baile  na  Boinne,  but  with  people  who  know  their 
place  and  yours.  You  will  begin  with  an  apology." 

Father  Finnegan  started  and  looked  distressed. 

"I  —  I  —  I  beg  pardon;"  he  said.  "  I  am  exceedingly 
sorry  for  my  mistake.  I  thought  ye  were  two  of  my 
parishioners " 

"  Two  of  your  poorer  parishioners  your  reverence 
means/'  said  Fergus.  "  It  is  generally  understood  that 
you  do  not  interfere  with  the  evening  rambles  of  the 
richer  folk." 

Father   Finnegan   flushed,   but   did   not  answer.     He 


LOVE'S    CAPTURED    HAT  233 

disliked  argument  at  any  time  —  he  was  accustomed  to 
obedience  —  and  he  did  not  care  for  controversy  with 
anyone  connected  with  that  dangerous  and  perniciously 
independent  organ,  Fainne  an  Lae. 

"  And  by  what  right  do  you  interfere  with  anybody, 
parishioner  or  visitor  ?  "  Elsie  demanded.  "  Do  you  set 
yourself  up  to  decide  who  are  to  take  walks,  and  who  are 
not?  Is  this  sort  of  autocracy  really  tolerated  in  Irish 
parishes?  Are  the  people  such  slaves  as  to  endure  it?" 

"  I  have  expressed  my  regret  for  my  mistake,"  said 
Father  Finnegan,  "  but  I  cannot  enter  into  an  argument. 
The  duties  of  priests  in  their  own  parishes,  and  the  rights 
of  the  Church  are " 

"  And  can  you  inform  us,"  asked  Fergus,  "  when  and 
where  the  Church  decided  that  priests  can  go  out  into 
the  highways,  stop  the  walks  of  friends,  acquaintances, 
or  even  lovers,  and  confiscate  the  hats  of  the  young 
ladies?" 

The  trio  were  so  pre-occupied  that  they  had  not  noticed 
the  approach  of  two  figures  from  Baile  na  Boinne.  These 
now  came  up.  They  were  Father  Kenealy  and  Father 
Wilson.  On  hearing  their  voices,  Father  Finnegan  looked 
troubled.  He  seemed  to  feel  that  his  position  was  not 
dignified. 

"  I  have  just  put  a  question  to  Father  Finnegan," 
Fergus  explained.  "  His  reverence  has  been  out  on  one 
of  his  famous  tours  of  inspection.  He  has  seized  one 
young  lady's  hat  already." 

Father  Finnegan  looked  awkwardly  at  the  offending 
article,  and  moved  as  if  to  go.  Elsie  caught  hold  of  the 
hat.  The  good  sagart  looked  nonplussed  and  undecided. 


234  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

He  did  not  care  to  do  anything  so  undignified  as  to  try 
to  pull  it  from  her  hold ;  neither  did  he  desire  to  leave 
her  entire  possession  of  it;  so  he  simply  stood  still, 
leaving  her  one  side  of  the  confiscated  hat,  he  holding  the 
other,  while  Fergus  continued : 

"  I  have  asked  Father  Finnegan  when  and  where  the 
Church  decided  that  priests  can  stop  the  walks  of  young 
men  and  women  —  friends  or  lovers  —  and  confiscate  the 
young  ladies'  hats.  Father  Finnegan  is  popularly  believed 
to  have  a  whole  roomful  of  such  spoils." 

Father  Wilson  looked  grievously  pained,  as  he  always 
did  when  any  question  affecting  the  province  of  the  clergy 
was  raised  by  a  layman. 

Father  Kenealy  laughed. 

"  Things  are  done  in  the  Church's  name  in  Ireland  that 
well  might  startle  the  Church,"  he  declared.  "  We  ought 
not  to  blame  the  Church,  but  rather  the  moral  cowardice 
of  the  people." 

Father  Finnegan  flushed  again,  and  drew  away  abrupt 
ly,  leaving  the  vanished  girl's  hat  in  Elsie's  hand. 

"  Good-night !  "  he  said  hastily,  and  turning,  bent  his 
steps  towards  Baile  na  Boinne.  The  friends  went  leisure 
ly  to  Cluainlumney,  discussing  from  various  standpoints 
the  drama  of  the  parted  sweethearts  and  the  cailin's  cap 
tured  hat. 

"And  the  fool  of  a  young  man  jumped  over  the  ditch 
and  ran  away !  "  said  Elsie  indignantly.  "  That 's  modern 
Irish  chivalry  and  bravery !  And  some  people  imagine 
you  can  build  a  nation  on  such  craven  material.  O  ye 
worshipers  of  the  impossible !  O,  ye  Men  of  the  Golden 
Mists !  " 


CAPTURED    HAT  235 

"But  what  will  you  do  with  the  hat?"  asked  Father 
Kenealy  gaily. 

"  Suppose  we  tell  the  story,"  said  Fergus,  "  in  next 
week's  Painne  an  Lae,  and  say  the  young  lady  can  have 
the  hat  on  application.  Meanwhile  we  could  exhibit  it 
in  the  office  window.  It  would  be  an  expressive  attrac 
tion  for  Dublin." 

"  'Twas  an  absurd  episode,"  said  Father  Wilson  dole 
fully,  "  but  it  will  lead  to  fearful  trouble.  Clash  with 
a  priest  of  the  old  order  means  clash  with  a  whole  organ 
ization,  and  a  very  formidable  one." 

"  But  naturally  the  salient  question  is :  Who  is  right 
and  who  is  wrong?"  Fergus  insisted. 

"  That,  I  fear,  is  not  really  asked  in  Ireland,"  said 
Father  Wilson,  despondently.  "  It  is  known  that  the 
ecclesiastical  power  is  strong,  and  it  is  assumed  that  it 
must  be  right.  In  the  present  case  Father  Finnegan  and 
his  friends  will  not  forget  that  he,  and  through  him,  the 
ministry,  have  been  shown  in  an  undignified  light,  that 
the  authority  he  has  exercised  for  years,  and  through  him 
ecclesiastical  authority  generally,  have  been  questioned. 
The  bishop  will  hear  of  it  in  the  morning;  and  all  the 
bishops  are  exceptionally  sensitive  just  now.  The  May- 
nooth  trouble,  which  is  proving  more  critical  than  they 
thought,  and  in  which  their  victory  is  likely  to  be  but 
nominal  and  temporary,  has  grievously  disturbed  them, 
and  lay  independence  will  be  sternly  repressed." 

"  Oh,  come  now,"  urged  Father  Kenealy,  "  don't  des 
pair.  The  bishops  don't  hold  Ireland  in  the  hollow  of 
their  hands." 

"  They  believe  they  do,"  replied  Father  Wilson,  "  and 


236  THK    PLOUGH    AND    THIS    CROSS 

that  is  the  trouble.     They  are  not  expected  to  reason, 

or  explain,  or  prove  things.     They  believe,  they  speak 

and  opposition  withers  like  autumn  leaves.  As  with  the 
forces  of  Nature,  which  in  many  ways  they  resemble, 
the  question  of  right  or  wrong  does  not  come  in  at  all. 
In  the  country  places  it  is  much  the  same  with  the  priests. 

They  are  feared  —  and  to  a  great  extent  reverenced 

as  the  old  gods  were.  The  Gael  has  forgotten  the  Dagh- 
da,  Angus  Og,  and  their  kin;  but  he  has  enthroned  the 
bishops  and  the  priests  in  their  stead.  It  is  a  case  of 
'  the  gods  survive  with  God  above  them.'  " 

"  But   the   old   Gods   did   not   suppress   love.     Autres 
temps,  autres  mccurs!"  said  Elsie. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

QUE)ST,  ELSIE'S  APOLOGIA  AND  INDICTMENT 


|ERGUS,  Elsie  and  Maeve  caught  the  first 
train  from  Baile  na  Boinne  for  Dublin  on 
Monday  morning.  It  was  a  "  Midland  " 
train  this  time,  and  the  first  part  of  the 
journey  was  through  storied  ground. 
They  passed  within  sight  of  historic  Tara, 
lonely  above  the  grass  lands.  Everything 
in  Meath  that  speaks  of  the  civilization  of  the 
past  is  lonely,  or  grassy,  or  unregarded.  But 
it  was  a  regal  moment  for  Elsie.  It  brought  her 
first  glimpse,  with  bodily  eyes,  of  Teamhair  na 
Riogh,  Tara  of  the  Kings,  the  golden  realm  that  meant 
more  in  her  imagination  than  Imperial  Rome  and  Troy 
combined. 

At  one  of  the  stations  Maeve  bought  a  morning  paper 
and  scanned  all  its  pages  searchingly,  but  read  nothing. 
Fergus  was  somewhat  surprised,  for  she  regarded  the 
daily  press  as  a  rule  with  disdain.  When  they  reached 
Dublin  she  mentioned  in  mysterious  wise  that  she  had 
some  very  urgent  and  special  business  to  do,  and  that  she 
would  come  to  the  office  in  about  an  hour  for  Elsie. 
Fergus  assumed  that  the  business  was  a  round  of  visits 


240  THIv    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

to  churches,  though  he  wondered  why  she  did  not  take 
Elsie  with  her  straight  away.  However,  as  the  arrange 
ment  meant  that  Elsie  would  accompany  him  to  the  office 
meanwhile,  he  felt  he  had  goo'd  reason  for  not  complain 
ing. 

Maeve's  mission,  however,  had  nothing  to  do  with 
churches.  Her  reason  ridiculed  it,  and  called  it  childish 
and  absurd,  but  she  was  impelled  to  it  all  the  same. 
She  was  haunted  by  the  vision  of  the  drowned  body  of 
Arthur  O'Mara,  dead  for  love's  sake  and  her's.  She 
had  bought  the  morning  paper  with  the  trembling  half- 
fear  of  finding  the  dread  discovery  off  Howth  described 
in  crude,  sensational  sentences  in  some  column  or  corner. 
There  was  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  the  deed,  and  the 
discovery  might  not  have  been  till  the  morning,  long 
after  the  paper  had  gone  to  press.  And  now  she  felt 
that  she  positively  must  go,  on  the  first  available  tram, 
and  take  stock  of  the  scene,  and  peep  at  those  waves 
that  had  so  tragic  a  suggestiveness  for  her  imagination. 
The  probable  futility  of  the  journey  was  no  argument 
against  making  it.  Her  critical  spirit  mocked  the  notion, 
and  made  light  of  the  brooding  and  gloom  of  her  tem 
perament.  But  she  must  go. 

At  the  office,  as  was  usual  on  Monday  mornings,  a 
great  pile  of  letters  awaited  Fergus.  There  was  a  certain 
romance  about  the  post  on  the  mornings  of  Monday  and 
Tuesday.  Not  only  did  special  contributors  send  their 
critical  or  joyous  thoughts,  but  there  were  surprises  and 
plenty  of  stimulation  amongst  the  correspondence  and  the 
news  notes  from  so  many  quarters  of  Gaeldom.  As  he 
opened  letter  after  letter  he  seemed  to  come  into  electric 


APOLOGIA  241 

contact  with  a  new  phase  of  awakened  mind,  and  the  effect 
altogether  was  exalting.  He  felt  in  glad  communion 
with  a  world  of  which  there  was  little  sign  or  token 
abroad  in  the  streets  and  squares  of  Dublin.  The  feeling 
came  that  Ireland  was  not  only  mentally  alive,  but  in 
exhaustibly  interesting,  magnificently  spacious. 

He  passed  a  couple  of  special  contributions  for  the 
printers,  and  told  the  foreman  that  the  only  remaining 
article  in  Irish  would  be  one  by  himself  —  in  a  chat  with 
Father  Kenealy  the  previous  evening  the  nature  of  the 
hints  and  preliminary  points  about  the  League  of  Pro 
gressive  Priests  had  been  decided  on,  and  these  he  meant 
to  unfold  in  Irish  when  he  had  exhausted  the  interest 
of  the  correspondence.  A  soft  light  like  a  flush  of 
spring  in  a  wintry  morning  stole  over  the  foreman's  face 
and  dispelled  its  careworn  gravity  when  he  heard  that 
Fergus  was  to  write  the  remaining  Irish  for  that  week's 
issue.  To  foremen  and  compositors  Fergus  was  easily 
the  most  favored  and  favorite  of  the  modern  writers 
of  Irish.  In  fact,  he  had  no  serious  rivals.  He  stood 
alone  on  a  proud  peak  far  above  all  his  contemporaries. 
His  eminence,  however,  had  nothing  to  cfo  with  idiom, 
or  style,  or  imagination,  or  thought,  or  any  of  the  usual 
essentials  of  literature.  It  arose  simply  from  the  fact 
that  the  writing  was  conscientiously,  purposely,  scien 
tifically  legible.  His  printers  were  far  too  old  and  tired 
to  study  Irish,  beyond,  in  a  hazy  way,  the  alphabet,  and 
so  their  Gaelic  work  had  often  a  fearsome  originality. 
The  receipt  of  proofs  made  the  foreman  temporarily 
an  enemy  of  his  kind,  and  the  old  "  comps'  "  correction 
of  their  own  work  was  attended  —  save  when  Fergus 


242  TH£  PLOUGH  AND  THS  CROSS 

and  one  or  two  others  were  the  writers  —  with  a  mel 
ancholy  amount  of  blasphemy  and  some  regrettable  in 
temperance. 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,"  said  Elsie  when  the  foreman  had 
gone  out  of  the  editorial  room,  "  would  you  trust  me  to 
write  an  article  for  your  soulful  and  impossible  paper?  " 

"  I  wish  to  goodness  you  would/'  he  said.  "  I  often 
wonder  why  you,  with  your  original  and  beautiful  mind, 
shrink  so  much  from  literary  expression,  while  so  many 
vain  and  foolish  people  rush  into  print  continually  — 
in  the  daily  papers,  I  mean." 

"  I  thought  you  left  flattering  fancy  in  the  Boyne 
Valley,  and  brought  a  sober  spirit  into  your  office.  But 
you  wouldn't  print  the  article  if  I  wrote  it.  It  would  be 
too  strong  for  you.  I  burn  with  indignation  every  time 
I  think  of  Father  Finnegan  and  that  incident  last  night 
and  all  it  typifies.  Such  clergymen  seem  to  think  that 
young  men  and  women  have  no  hearts,  or  rather  that  the 
finest  feelings  of  their  hearts  spell  sin  and  corruption. 
I  'm  tempted  to  write  on  article  on  'The  Clergy  Against 
Nature.'  " 

"  That  is  fairly  pointed  and  decisive  to  begin  with. 
You  have  undoubtedy  a  spacious  subject  but  also  a  grim 
and  terrible  one.  It  brings  us  to  one  of  the  greatest 
root-wrongs  and  ironies  of  Irish  country  life.  We  cannot 
tell  what  blighted  existence  and  tragedy  it  causes.  It 
crushes  romance  and  tenderness,  or  gives  young  people 
a  false  and  poisonous  notion  of  them.  You  are  in  the 
mood  to  deal  fitly  with  it  —  now  that  your  own  heart 
is  so  tender." 

"  Be  serious,  Fergus  O'Hagan.     I,  too,  can  take  what 


APOLOGIA  243 

some  people  call  broad,  impersonal  views  of  situations." 
She  had  seated  herself  at  the  little  table  in  a  corner  of 
the  room.  She  took  up  a  pen  and  some  sheets  of  thin 
copy-paper,  and  began  to  write.  Fergus,  from  the  stress 
of  his  own  work,  glanced  interestedly  across  at  her  from 
time  to  time.  Her  face  was  set  and  her  eyes  had  an 
enkindled  gleam.  Now  and  then  she  made  solemn  pauses, 
rested  her  forehead  in  her  hands,  then  started  and  bent 
eagerly  to  her  task  again.  She  seemed  concentrated  in 
tensity  in  a  slim  and  piquant  setting. 

Fergus  proceeded  with  the  study  of  the  correspondence. 
There  was  a  letter  —  not  for  publication  —  from  Geoffrey 
Mortimer.  He  wrote  from  the  neighborhood  of  Victoria' 
Station,  London,  S.  W.,  and  was  near  enough  to  Brixton 
and  far  enough  from  Ireland  to  feel  in  a  half-forgiving 
mood  towards  the  latter,  he  said.  He  was  on  his  way 
to  Paris  for  a  spell.  From  Ireland,  supinely  indifferent 
to  art,  to  London,  so  crudely  and  vulgarly  hostile  to 
art,  was  too  abrupt  a  transition  for  artistic  equilibrium. 
He  must  have  a  purple  bath  of  Paris,  where  art  was 
alternately  played  with  and  practised. 

"  London  is  realizing  more  and  more  its  destiny  as 
the  universal  suburb,"  he  said.  "  The  eternal  lean  man 
with  glasses  on  his  nose  and  black  bag  in  his  hand  is 
eternally  running  after  his  odious  bus.  The  Devil  dis 
tributes  himself  in  many  motor-cars.  The  architecture 
seems  uglier  than  ever ;  the  very  policemen  seem  tempted 
to  arrest  the  buildings  as  public  nuisances.  Are  not 
the  ways  of  what  you  call  Nature  curious?  At  first 
sight  there  is  no  sense  in  her  production  of  an  artist 
like  myself  in  this  advanced  stage  of  British  decomposi- 


244  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE)    CROSS 

tion  and  Irish  futility,  when  men  no  longer  can  build 
beautifully,  write  beautifully,  or  live  beautifully;  and 
when  women  cannot  even  dress  beautifully.  Nature,  it 
would  seem,  should  have  brought  me  forth  hundreds  of 
years  ago,  made  me  a  contemporary  of  Michael  Angelo, 
not  a  successor  of  Pater  and  a  contemporary  of  Kipling 
and  the  Freeman's  Journal.  Posterity,  however,  may 
see  that  I  was  as  timely  in  my  appearance  and  my  artis 
tic  adolescence  as  Horace  or  Juvenal.  In  unborn  genera 
tions  I  may  stand  forth  as  the  literary  undertaker  of 
the  British  Empire.  Its  decline  and  fall  may  still  interest 
humanity  through  a  few  of  my  epigrams. 

"  There  was  a  rumor  here  last  evening  that  the  Gaelic 
League,  as  well  as  your  Tadmor-in-the-Wilderness  paper, 
had  been  suppressed.  I  did  not  believe  it,  and  it  does 
not  seem  to  be  true.  The  powers  that  really  rule  Ireland 
do  not  act  precipitately,  nor  put  marked  folk  and  forces 
out  of  pain  quickly.  The  course  of  the  doom  is  as 
deliberate  as  it  is  inevitable.  Your  fair  American  am 
bassadress  will  doubtless  be  in  time  to  share  yours. 

"  I  may  have  to  look  in  on  your  island  for  a  few  days 
after  my  recuperation  in  Paris.  Don't  imagine  that  the 
little  of  the  soul  of  Cuchulainn  which  is  in  most  of 
your  racial  remnant  has  revived  in  me.  I  go  for  family 
and  property  reasons,  and  simply  in  my  personal  capacity. 
My  artistic  individuality  is  divorced  from  Ireland  abso 
lutely,  and  no  more  shall  the  world  associate  it  with 
Dublin.  Geoffrey  Mortimer,  the  middle-age  gentleman 
and  citizen  can  call  on  Ireland,  but  the  Geoffrey  Mortimer 
of  art  and  the  imagination  tries  never  again  to  compress 
his  cosmic  significance  into  the  limits  of  your  island. 


APOLOGIA  245 

Ibsen  forgave  Norway  and  terminated  his  German  exile, 
but  this  was  going  back  to  a  land  of  men  and  women  and 
mountains  and  tall  pines.  The  land  where  the  incident 
of  my  birth  took  place  offers  in  the  main  but  sheep  and 
mists." 

Fergus  completed  his  Irish  article,  wrote  some  notes, 
and  answered  a  few  letters.  As  for  Elsie  it  was  early 
afternoon  when  she  blotted  her  last  sheet. 

"  I  'm  afraid  it 's  a  wild  and  whirling  affair,"  she  said. 
"  But  I  wrote  as  I  felt.  How  shall  I  sign  it?  " 

"  I  said  the  other  day  in  the  Boyne  Valley,"  he  an 
swered,  "  that  Deirdre  —  winning,  tender  and  romantic 
as  she  was  —  must  have  been  like  you  in  her  girlhood, 
though  she  was  scarely  so  piquant  and  playful.  Sign 
it  '  Deirdre. '  " 

"  You  may  not  be  so  extravagantly  flattering  when 
you  Ve  read  it.  But  I  can't  sign  it  with  so  romantic  a 
pen-name  in  cold  blood  —  if  it  is  cold  at  the  moment. 
But  take  it,  and  sign  it  in  any  wild  way  you  please  —  if 
you  dare  to  print  it." 

He  took  the  article,  signed  it  "  Deidre,"  and  then  read 
it  slowly  from  beginning  to  end. 

"  Elsie  O'Kennedy,"  he  said,  "  no  sensible  person 
speaks  positively  as  to  what  will  or  will  not  excite  Ireland 
in  the  domain  of  thoughts  and  ideas.  Yet  I  think  I 
may  safely  prophesy  that  '  The  Clergy  Against  Nature  ' 
will  make  history." 

"Golden  Mists  again!"  said  Elsie.  "I  merely  de 
scribed  the  scene  outside  Baile  na  Boinne,  made  some 
general  reflections,  and  drew  a  few  broad  conclu 
sions." 


.246  THE;  PLOUGH   AND  THE  CROSS 

"  Quite  true,  so  far  as  it  goes.  A  sonneteer  might 
say  he  had  simply  written  poems  of  fourteen  lines.  The 
point  is  the  nature  of  the  lines.  So  with  your  reflections 
and  conclusions.  You  made  and  drew  them  with  insight 
and  boldness,  but  with  singular  delicacy,  though  at  times 
when  you  grew  ironic  you  were  mordantly  severe.  You 
wrote  from  the  heart  as  well  as  the  head,  and  your  article 
is  at  once  a  charming  apologia  for-  love  and  tenderness 
and  heart-magic  and  a  broad  indictment  of  the  older 
clergy  for  their  suppression  of  the  joy  of  life.  Your  pic 
ture  of  the  sheer  rural  Blight,  the  forlorn  land  where 
love  must  needs  be  still-born,  is  extraordinarily  grim  and 
striking.  At  the  same  time  you  express  a  very  noble 
ideal  of  broad-minded  and  living-hearted  priests,  recog 
nizing  the  modern  world  and  the  essence  of  humanity. 
You  have  revealed  yourself  at  last.  Even  I  did  not 
know  you  till  today." 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,  you  may  be  more  or  less  competent 
to  turn  out  an  impossible,  golden-age  paper,  but  you  have 
a  great  deal  to  learn  about  woman's  nature  yet." 

"  I  wonder  on  what  divine  adventure  has  Maeve  be 
taken  herself,"  he  asked  when  he  had  passed  out  the 
article.  "  The  '  hour '  is  rather  long,  even  for  one  of 
Maeve's  '  hours.'  Ah !  —  here  's  something  that  will  in 
terest  you  —  a  letter  from  the  one  and  only  Geoffrey 
Mortimer.  It  isn't  private,  and  he  likes  his  ironic  wisdom 
to  get  the  widest  possible  circulation." 

He  wondered  why,  when  she  had  read  the  letter,  she 
passed  it  back  listlessly,  and  said  a  little  wearily :  "  I 
think  I  '11  go  out  in  search  of  Maeve."  He  had  forgotten 
the  phrase  about  the  "  fair  American  ambassadress," 


APOLOGIA  247 

which  happened  to  be  the  one  that  possessed  for  Elsie 
a  special  and  peculiar  significance. 

"  I  suppose,"  she  thought  to  herself,  "  I  'm  a  fool  to 
give  the  thing  half  a  thought.  His  real  interest  is  in 
ideas.  Everything  else  is  mental  play.  His  heart  —  if 
he  really  has  a  heart  at  all  —  would  never  bleed  for 
anybody.  He  '11  never  die  of  la  grande  passion." 

The  arrival  of  Maeve  diverted  her  thoughts.  That 
apparently  reposeful  young  lady  made  light  of  their 
gentle  raillery  about  her  dilatoriness. 

"  N'importe,"  she  said.  "  When  a  woman  is  late  you 
may  be  sure  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  that  the  explanation 
is  something  frivolous  or  foolish." 

They  did  not  think  so,  but  inwardly  she  resolutely 
applied  the  description  to  herself.  She  had  found  in 
Howth  no  tragic  significance  whatever.  Everything  was 
placid,  almost  commonplace  indeed  to  her  anxious  mind 
and  expectant  eyes.  When  she  came  down  from  the  bold 
cliffs  and  looked  at  the  easy-going  villagers  and  thought 
of  the  character  of  her  quest  —  so  far  as  it  was  a  quest 
—  she  laughed  at  herself.  If  Elsie  and  Fergus  only 
knew !  Then  she  consoled  herself  with  the  reflection  that 
the  wisest  of  men  and  women  have  a  streak  of  glorious 
folly  in  their  natures. 


CHAPTER  XXV 


AND  A  SENSATION 

'M  in  a  mighty  hurry,"  said  Terence 
O'Connellan,  when  he  called  next  day  to 
see  Fergus.  "I've  got  the  bishops'  in 
structions  as  to  the  part  which  my  Irish 
political  organization  in  Britain  is  to  take 
in  the  coming  campaign,  and  I  've  got 

special  hints  for  the  '  Party  ' " 

'  The  age  of  the  wonder-workers  is  not 
past,"  said  Fergus  ironically. 

"  We  're  to  give  the  Nonconformists, 
English  and  Welsh,  a  hot  time  of  it," 
continued  Terence.  "  We  are  to  help  to  turn  the  imagin 
ation  of  the  Irish  race  at  home  and  abroad  to  the  British 
schools  question.  While  we  are  smiting  the  Noncom- 
formists  to  the  wonder  and  delight  of  the  innocent  and 
artless  Irish  people,  your  bishops  will  deal  a  few  quiet 
back-handers  in  Maynooth  and  elsewhere,  and  your  wild 
experiment  of  thinking  for  yourselves  in  Ireland  will 
trouble  episcopal  sensibilities  no  more.  Don't  worry,  how 
ever.  When  the  blow  comes  just  gather  yourself  together, 
and  go  straight  to  the  North  Wall.  That  pleasant  position 
on  my  staff  will  be  waiting  for  you  in  London." 

"  I  'm  going  to  fight  the  good  fight  in  Ireland  —  to  the 
last,"  said  Fergus. 


AND    A    SENSATION  249 

"  No,  you  're  not,"  said  Terence.  "  You  're  not  so  moon 
struck  as  all  that.  You  don't  seriously  imagine  that  the 
bishops  who  lead  the  fieriest  political  party  of  modern 
times  like  sheep  are  going  to  tolerate  your  little  adven 
tures.  Neither  they  nor  Rome  can  allow  you  to  spread 
ideas  that  might  in  any  way  endanger  the  British  con 
nexion.  Rome  cannot  afford  to  displease  the  British 
Empire,  and  so  Rome,  acting  directly  or  through  the 
bishops,  must  simply  smash  you  all,  the  moment  your 
wild  project  of  making  Ireland  a  thinking  or  an  inde 
pendent  entity  looks  in  any  way  serious.  You  'd  better 
be  packing  up  and  thinking  of  your  ticket  to  Euston. 
The  confidences  of  the  great  are,  of  course,  private,  but 
I  can  tell  you  that  the  bishops  have  not  the  least  idea 
of  standing  any  nonsense  either  in  Maynooth  or  Dublin." 

"  Bishops  are  neither  infallible  nor  all-powerful,"  said 
Fergus. 

"  For  all  practical  purposes  they  are  both,  in  Ireland," 
retorted  Terence.  "  In  my  capacity  as  Irish  political 
leader  I  have  to  do  their  bidding  meekly,  though  in  my 
role  as  English  Radical  and  journalist  I  am  outside  their 
jurisdiction,  and  take  no  count  of  them.  That  is  where 
I  have  the  pull  of  Redmond  and  the  rest  of  them.  Which 
reminds  me  that  I  Ve  decided  to  start  another  great 
Radical  evening  paper  in  London.  'Twas  hard  to  get  the 
money  till  now.  You  know  that  my  friends  lost  heavily 
in  South  African  stock  transactions  at  the  beginning  of 
that  infernal  Boer  War.  We  counted  on  a  British  '  picnic 
to  Pretoria/  as  all  the  finanical  experts  did,  and  we  paid 
dearly  for  our  confidence.  We  have  now  recouped  our 
selves  in  other  directions." 


250  THE  PivOUGH  AND  THE;  CROSS 

"  Then  you  ought  to  come  along  ancl  establish  new 
industries  in  your  native  land,"  said  Fergus. 

"  I  've  made  ten  thousand  speeches  for  the  benefit  of 
my  native  land,"  replied  Terence.  "  Isn't  that  worth  a 
hundred  of  your  provincial  and  plodding  industries?  I  Ve 
made  Irish  wrongs  respectable  in  the  drawing-rooms  of 
Mayfair,  and  I  've  turned  my  Ego  inside  out  in  evening 
and  weekly  papers  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  till  knowing 
that  Ego  the  British  Empire  knows  the  whole  race  of 
which  it  is  the  microcosm.  My  heart  was  bleeding  into 
'  copy  '  for  Ireland  when  you  were  in  your  cradle.  Young 
Ireland  sneers  at  that,  and  thinks  it  cheap  and  easy  to 
weep  in  print.  Young  Ireland  has  a  primitive  and  impos 
sible  idea  of  heroism  and  patriotism.  I  'm  too  old  and 
pampered  a  bird  to  be  caught  with  the  chaff  of  the 
'  simple  life.'  Of  life  in  any  sense  worth  living  Young 
Ireland  is  cravenly  afraid,  and  if  you  want  to  realize 
yourself  the  sooner  you  come  back  to  London  from  this 
sapless,  shivering,  hole-and-corner  country  the  better." 

"  You  think  Young  Ireland  is  afraid  of  life,  do  you?  " 
asked  Fergus.  "  Here  is  something  that  may  cause  you 
to  see  how  far  behind  the  times  you  are." 

He  produced  a  proof  of  Elsie's  article.  Terence  looked 
at  it  listlessly,  but  the  heading  attracted  his  attention  and 
stirred  his  interest.  He  did  a  little  "  lightning  reading," 
and  then  his  editorial  spirit  was  aroused. 

"  This  smacks  at  once  of  Paris  and  Norway,  and  is 
an  amazing  production  for  sheepish  Ireland,"  he  said 
after  a  few  minutes.  "  I  can't  wait  to  read  it  all  now. 
I  '11  take  it  with  me,  and  if  it  pans  out  as  it  promises 
I  '11  devote  a  signed  special  article  to  it  in  the  next  issue 


AND   A    SENSATION  25! 

of  Terence's  Own  Trumpet.  You  're  printing  it  this 
week?  Very  well.  My  rhapsody  will  be  out  almost  as 
soon  as  itself.-  You  may  possibly  come  to  something  as 
a  journalist  after  all  —  even  in  Ireland.  If  you  really 
get  in  this  way  the  eternal  feminine  and  the  natural 
passion  of  humanity  to  rise  up  against  Ban  and  Blight 
in  Ireland  you  may  have  to  be  reckoned  with.  But 
such  human  and  natural  procedure  is  terribly  unlike 
you.  You  've  probably  just  blundered  into  printing  this 
amazingly  good  thing  —  'tis  doubtless  only  a  felicitous 
accident,  and  tomorrow  and  the  day  after  you  will  very 
likely  lapse  back  into  the  vain  and  wasteful  task  of 
attempting  to  awaken  mind  in  Ireland,  where  it  can 
always  and  easily  be  suppressed.  However,  when  the 
crash  comes  you  know  where  to  find  me  in  London."  .  .  . 
On  the  appearance  of  the  next  number  of  Fainne  an 
Lae  there  was  consternation  amongst  the  older  official 
heads  of  the  Gaelic  League.  Mr.  Wightman  read  with 
some  difficulty  the  guarded  Irish  notes  about  the  Pro 
gressive  Priests  as  he  walked  amongst  his  sheep  on  the 
plains  of  Meath,  and  he  wrote  post-haste  to  declare  that 
insistence  on  the  spirit  of  the  early  Church  was  a  subtle 
attack  on  property  and  the  grazing  system,  and  the  ap 
plication  of  practical  Christianity  meant  an  insidious 
move  towards  a  schism  in  the  Church  in  Ireland,  as  well 
as  towards  the  levelling  down  and  the  robbery  of  the  men 
with  a  stake  on  the  country.  The  Devil  would  denounce 
dividends  for  his  purpose.  The  executive  of  the  Gaelic 
League  would  have  to  repudiate  all  such  poisonous  her 
esies,  threatening  society  and  property  as  they  did,  and 
tending  to  make  the  rich  look  askance  on  the  language 


252  TH£    PLOUGH    AND    TH£    CROSS 

movement.  As  to  "  Deirdre's "  article,  "  The  Clergy 
Against  Nature,"  Mr.  Wightman  could  not  find  words 
sufficiently  strong  for  the  condemnation  it  deserved.  It 
was  impudent  and  irreligious  to  contend  that  the  clergy 
were  not  empowered  and  entitled  to  superintend  or  veto 
the  love  affairs  of  their  flocks.  On  the  whole  they  had 
used  their  power  justly  and  discreetly.  Practically  they 
never  interfered  with  the  walks  and  ways  of  rich  and 
educated  lovers ;  but  it  was  obviously  incumbent  on  them 
to  keep  an  eye  on  those  of  members  of  the  inferior  and 
uneducated  classes.  Even  in  these  cases  it  would  be 
easy  for  respectable  sweethearts  to  obtain  permits  from 
their  P.  P.  that  would  enable  them  to  take  walks  at  a 
reasonable  time,  say  up  to  an  hour  after  sunset. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  both  matters, 
but  there  was  no  public  comment  at  first.  The  worthies 
of  the  daily  press  as  usual  had  their  eyes  on  England 
and  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  an  Irish  Sappho,  Pindar, 
Heine,  or  Burns  might  sing,  or  an  Irish  Dante  begin  a 
new  Divina  Commedia  in  a  thoughtful  home  organ, 
without  notice  on  their  part.  Indeed,  the  daily  press 
conductors  appeared  to  consider  it  infra  dig.  to  notice 
anything  intellectual  that  had  a  native  origin,  at  any  rate 
until  it  had  first  secured  attention  in  England  or  France ; 
then  their  London  or  Paris  correspondents  were  attracted 
and  the  work  obtained  a  transient,  second-hand  recog 
nition  in  the  country  of  its  origin. 

With  little  delay,  however,  Elsie's  article  was  destined 
to  secure  as  much  attention  as  a  cause  cclebre.  Terence 
O'Connellan's  weekly  whirl  of  egoism  came  out.  It  con 
tained  a  mighty  pronouncement  on  "  The  Clergy  Against 


AND   A    SENSATION  253 

Nature "  (with  copious  quotations)  by  the  great  man 
himself.  His  adjectives,  whirling  fast  on  one  another 
cried  like  winds  and  waters  in  tempestuous  nights.  This 
womanly  indictment,  he  said,  was  a  portent,  a  herald  of 
revolt,  the  most  startling  and  suggestive  note  that  had 
been  sounded  in  Ireland  within  the  memory  of  man. 
For  good  or  ill,  or  a  mixture  of  good  and  ill,  the  dom 
inance  of  the  priest  in  three-fourths  of  rural  Ireland  had 
been  all  but  universal  and  unquestioned.  How  far  men 
or  women  might  think  was  for  him  to  decide ;  whether 
boys  and  girls  might  dance  at  the  crossroads  or  even  in 
their  own  or  neighbor's  homes  depended  on  his  will  and 
pleasure;  but  woe  to  the  young  man  and  maid  that 
dared  to  saunter  on  the  highways  or  the  byways  in  the 
evenings,  dreaming  love's  young  dream,  when  he  was 
abroad.  To  him  romance  was  sin  and  the  heart  of 
manhood  and  maidenhood  corruption.  He  knew  better 
than  Nature,  and  he  suppressed  her. 

Of  course,  continued  Terence,  there  must  have  been 
youths  and  maids,  and  men  and  women,  who  in  their 
heart  of  hearts  resented  all  this,  who  felt  instinctively 
or  dumbly  that  it  was  all  wrong.  But  none  of  them  had 
hitherto  indicted  the  system ;  none  had  been  bold  enough 
to  expose  and  express  its  unnaturalness  and  its  cruelty. 
But  at  last  there  had  arisen  one  who  spoke  for  the  sup 
pressed  and  the  marred  lives,  and  boldly  and  eloquently 
arraigned  the  system  root  and  branch.  In  "  Deirdre  " 
not  an  individual,  but  Womanhood  itself,  seemed  to  speak, 
and  speak  in  this  instance  with  a  Norwegian  grimness 
and  a  Gaelic  grace.  He  quoted  sundry  passages  by  way 
of  illustration,  and  declared  that  whoever  "  Deirdre  "  was, 


254  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

she  surely  had  before  her  a  great  future  as  a  writer, 
and  a  teacher  and  leader  of  woman.  She  had  sounded  a 
trumpet-note  of  resurgence  and  revolution  in  Ireland. 
But  he  went  on,  in  his  characteristic  way,  to  deduce 
from  the  article  a  plea  for  passion  and  revolt  entirely 
and  utterly  foreign  to  Elsie's  thought  and  nature.  And 
in  this  others  followed  his  lead. 

The  Dublin  papers,  that  had  not  troubled  about  the 
article  itself,  could  not  ignore  or  resist  a  pronouncement 
from  London  and  Terence  O'Connellan,  and  they  gave 
it  in  liberal  measure.  The  organs  under  clerical  control 
or  influence  took  care  to  point  out  editorially  that  the 
philosophy  of  "  Deirdre "  was  unsound  and  un-Irish, 
and  that  all  the  writers  of  Europe  could  not  break  the 
mystic  bond  between  priests  and  people  nor  mar  their 
historic  union  in  the  cause  of  Faith  and  Fatherland. 
The  priests  knew  better  than  the  people  themselves  what 
was  good  for  the  people.  These  articles  were  so  strained 
and  platitudinous  that  it  is  charitable  to  assume  they 
carried  .little  conviction  to  anybody.  The  provincial 
papers  quoted  largely  from  Terence,  as  did  the  avowedly 
religious  weeklies,  which  then  adventured  upon  long 
discussions  that  touched  the  real  point  occasionally. 
Lord  Strathbarra,  the  day  he  read  the  article,  translated 
it  into  French  for  a  Paris  daily  paper,  and  afterwards 
wrote  two  studies  of  it,  one  in  French  and  the  other  in 
Italian,  for  favorite  organs  of  liberal  Catholicism.  Its 
public  career  was  long.  Its  private  effect  was,  however, 
more  momentous. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

O   THE   TKARS   AND   TH£   GR£AT   INANITIES   OF   THINGS  !  " 

|ERGUS'S  world  went  strangely  awry  in 
the  days  succeeding  the  publication  of 
Elsie's  article.  Some  of  the  trouble  was 
obvious,  and  some  mysterious.  The  for 
mer  concerned  the  office,  where  men  and 
machinery  were  overtried;  the  latter  the 
home  at  Dalkey,  where  spirit  and  atmos 
phere  had  become  unaccountably  out  of  time 
and  disappointing.  As  there  was  no  apparent 
reason  for  this,  no  patent  cause  for  any  want  of 
harmony  with  life  on  the  part  of  Maeve  and 
Elsie,  he  began  to  think  after  a  few  days  that  his  ima 
gination  was  at  fault.  But  the  feeling  that  there  was 
trouble  in  the  background  could  not  be  wholly  put  away. 
When  he  asked  questions  he  was  answered  either  caustic 
ally  or  evasively. 

He  was  obliged  to  be  absent  all  day,  and  often  till 
late  into  the  night.  One  of  the  grim  periodical  office 
crises  was  in  being.  It  happened  that  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  special  printing  to  be  done  —  much  of  it  in  Irish, 
particularly  the  programs  of  coming  Feiseanna  of  the 
Gaelic  League,  and  these  he  had  to  watch  carefully  him- 


258  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

self  at  all  times.  The  expected  happened.  The  anti 
quated  printing-machine  proved  uncertain  and  erratic 
at  the  most  critical  stages,  and  now  and  then  refused  to 
work  altogether.  Hence  delay,  demoralization  of  the 
antique  compositors'  nerves,  unearthly  hours,  and  a  gen 
eral  feeling  of  the  imminence  of  chaos. 

Fergus  had  also  a  good  deal  of  exacting  correspond 
ence  to  attend  to,  and  he  found  it  an  ordeal.  Original 
work  was  satisfying  and  never  tiring,  but  correspondence 
meant  making  pieces  of  the  mind  to  no  particular  purpose. 
He  made  exceptions,  of  course:  in  the  case  of  his  May- 
nooth  friends  especially.  An  interesting  discussion  with 
these  forward  spirits  was  in  progress  when  Elsie's  article 
saw  the  light.  The  mood  of  certain  pioneers  in  the 
College  was  bold,  especially  when  the  possible  interfer 
ence  of  the  Roman  authorities  with  the  Gaelic  League  was 
broached,  but  the  spirit  of  wariness  was  growing,  and 
there  was  a  feeling  that  the  fears  of  the  bishops  had 
been  allayed  for  the  time.  Fergus  had  steadily  coun 
selled  caution  and  prudence,  not  alone  because  he  hated 
the  idea  of  clash  and  strife  in  the  name  of  religion,  but 
because  he  felt  that  the  duty  of  the  day  was  to  awaken 
spirit  and  mind  in  Ireland  —  to  be  as  soothing,  inspiring, 
and  constructive  as  one  and  all  could  be;  and  for  this 
slow  and  delicate  work  the  utmost  possible  calm,  both  in 
mood  and  in  environment,  was  necessary.  But  a  startling 
change  in  the  temper  of  the  Maynooth  correspondence 
came  about  unexpectedly. 

Elsie,  of  all  people  in  the  world,  was  the  cause.  For 
some  days,  with  the  stress  and  strain  of  late  hours,  he 
saw  comparatively  little  of  herself  and  Maeve.  He 


THE:  TEARS  AND  INANITIES  OF  THINGS          259 

gathered  that  rambles  and  excursions  were  the  order  of 
the  day,  but  somehow  they  did  not  appear  to  conduce 
to  harmony  or  glow  of  soul.  When  he  returned  late 
they  were  tired  or  out  of  tune,  and  when  he  saw  them 
in  the  mornings  they  were  not  much  more  serene.  The 
least  reference  to  Elsie's  article  irritated  Maeve,  and  to 
Elsie  herself  the  subject  was  apparently  distasteful. 
This  puzzled  Fergus  not  a  little,  but  light  came  one  morn 
ing  when  he  made  a  reference  to  the  shrill  pronouncement 
of  Terence  O'Connellan,  which  had  reached  Ireland 
the  day  before.  He  had  just  finished  breakfast,  and 
was  in  a  hurry,  for  office  concerns  were  particularly 
complicated  and  critical.  Elsie  came  down,  looking  tired 
and  perturbed.  Affecting  the  usual  gaiety  he  lightly 
referred  to  her  growing  fame  as  a  leader  of  modern 
womankind. 

He  was  taken  aback  by  her  answer : 

"  It  is  all  preposterous,  and  I  feel  absurd  and  angry. 
I  wish  I  could  get  the  whole  miserable  business  out  of 
my  mind." 

And  before  Fergus  could  interject  a  protest  she  ran 
on: 

"  Terence  O'Connellan  has  a  gross  mind  and  writes 
'  clotted  nonsense.'  From  all  he  says  about  sex  and 
rebellious  womanhood  one  would  think  I  am  a  '  revolted 
daughter '  or  a  '  new  woman.'  He  can't  distinguish  be 
tween  romance  and  disease.  He  has  read  things  into 
what  I  wrote  that  make  me  feel  almost  ashamed  of  being 
alive." 

"  That 's  his  way,"  said  Fergus.  "  If  he  reviewed 
the  Song  of  Solomon  we  know  the  terrible  thing  he  'd 


260  THE;   PLOUGH   AND  THE:   CROSS 

make  of  it.  Everybody  understands  all  about  his  morbid 
imagination  and  makes  liberal  allowances.  As  to  what 
you  wrote  every  natural-minded  reader  will  be  struck 
from  first  to  last  by  its  tenderness  and  delicacy." 

"'Moonshine,  Fergus  O'Hagan !  The  sting  of  the 
wretched  business  is  that  I  know  Terence  O'Connellan's 
deductions  to  be  true.  I  don't  know  why  I  wrote  the 
miserable  stuff.  I  suppose  I  was  carried  out  of  myself, 
or  down  into  some  nasty,  wilful  dungeon  of  myself. 
I  hate  it  all  now ;  but  there  it  stands  in  black  and  white 
against  me,  and  I  can't  forgive  you  for  being  so  stupid 
and  short-sighted  as  to  print  it.  It  will  do  endless  harm ; 
the  hubbub  about  it  is  simply  indecent." 

"  Elsie  O'Kennedy,  you  are  talking  nonsense  at  once 
pathetic  and  delightful.  Of  course,  I  know  how  extra 
ordinarily  sensitive  and  delicate-minded  you  are,  and  how 
Terence's  crude  inferences  must  jar  upon  you.  But  love 
and  the  heart  are  great,  eternal  realities  —  part  of  the 
wonder  of  life,  the  Design  of  Providence  —  and  it  was 
for  these  you  pleaded.  If  Terence  O'Connellan  and  other 
spoiled  and  worldly  people  choose  to  look  to  the  seamy 
side  and  draw  deductions  about  passion  and  license, 
that  is  another  story,  and  you  should  treat  it  with  airy 
contempt." 

"  It  will  make  your  work  and  the  paper  and  yourself 
unpopular.  It  will  spoil  everything.  I  don't  know  what 
madness  took  possession  of  me ' 

"  What  is  wrong  with  us  that  if  we  write  from  the 
heart  we  are  distressed  when  we  see  the  confidences 
in  print?"  he  asked,  half  to  himself.  "I've  had  the 
feeling  dozens  of  times." 


THIS    TEARS    AND    INANITIES    OF    THINGS  2.6l 

Maeve  came  down  at  this  stage  and  the  discussion 
was  abruptly  closed.  Fergus  went  away  with  uneasy 
feelings.  When  Elsie  descended  from  her  wonted  light 
some  heights  her  gloom  for  the  nonce  was  apt  to  be 
abysmal. 

To  his  surprise  and  indignation  his  friends  in  Maynooth, 
An  t-Athair  O'Muinneog  excepted,  drew  from  "  The 
Clergy  Against  Nature  "  the  same  deductions  as  Terence 
O'Connellan,  the  blase  editor  himself. 

"You  had  Maynooth  with  you,"  wrote  one,  "and  at 
a  stroke  you  have  lost  it,  and  we  are  horribly  compro 
mised.  To  say  we  are  wounded  and  amazed  is  to  give  an 
imperfect  idea  of  our  feelings.  The  paper  is  plainly 
entering  on  a  vicious  course  and  campaign,  throwing 
decency  and  virtue  to  the  winds.  The  hostile  and  the 
wobbly  have  now  a  case  against  us.  '  We  now  know 
what  your  Gaelic  League  means/  they  say ;  '  it  is  throwing 
off  the  mask  at  last.'  That  Fainne  an  Lae  should  lend 
itself  to  an  apologia  for  Paganism  is  deplorable  and  dis 
graceful."  There  was  much  more  in  the  same  key. 

In  a  time  of  less  strain,  and  had  anyone  but  Elsie  been 
concerned,  Fergus  would  probably  have  replied  to  the 
Maynooth  objectors  with  more  mellowness  of  style  and 
temper;  but  at  the  best  of  times  he  was  apt  to  grow 
impatient  with  stupidity,  and  positively  wrathful  over 
injustice,  though  after  the  expression  of  the  wrath  a 
sheer  and  chastening  reaction  was  sure  to  set  in. 

"  I  expected  more  perception  and  discretion,"  he 
wrote,  "  from  presumably  educated  men.  Theologians 
who  affect  to  be  advanced  ought  to  have  long  since  given 
up  reading  disease  and  viciousness  into  the  expression  of 


262  TH£  PLOUGH   AND  THE:   CROSS 

pure  and  tender  feelings  of  the  heart.  'Tis  really  time 
for  ecclesiastics  to  make  up  their  minds  to  understand 
human  nature.  The  Church  has  suffered  enough  in  the 
past  from  the  unreason  and  the  morbid  imaginings  of 
particular  Churchmen  who  had  sterilized  their  own  hearts 
and  who  seemed  to  think  that  the  hearts  of  all  men  and 
women  ought  to  be  sterilized  too." 

The  controversy  grew  sharp  and  almost  embittered, 
though  An  t-Athair  O'Muinneog  tried  to  pour  oil  on  the 
troubled  waters.  Some  of  the  Maynooth  pioneers  de 
clared  that  they  were  risking  everything  by  their  attitude 
and  ideas,  and  now  laymen  like  Fergus  wanted  to  lead 
them  and  dictate  to  them  instead  of  trusting  to  their 
calmer  guidance.  Fergus  replied  that  apparently  it  was 
hard  for  even  advanced  ecclesiastics  to  surrender  the  idea 
that  Churchmen  must  be  dominant  in  all  spheres,  and  he 
advised  them  to  think  more  of  the  common  cause  than  of 
their  individual  susceptibilities.  Eventually  they  declared 
in  effect  that  they  would  have  to  reconsider  their  whole 
position.  Fergus  suggested  that  they  were  running  away 
from  their  recent  bold  ideas  on  an  unreal  side-issue. 
After  this  there  were  strained  relations,  though  the  ex 
change  of  ideas  between  An  t-Athair  O'Muinneog  and 
Fergus  grew,  if  anything,  more  kindly  and  confidential 
than  before.  The  former  admitted,  however,  a  growing 
sense  of  doubt  that  Maynooth  was  quite  the  place  to 
mold  intellectual  heroes  and  martyrs. 

In  the  little  intervals  that  Fergus  could  spend  at  home 
as  time  went  on  Maeve  and  Elsie  were  not  particularly 
gracious  to  each  other,  but'  they  seemed  to  join  for  some 
unaccountable  reason  in  a  sort  of  graceful  caustic  hostil- 


THE:  TKARS  AND  INANITIES  OF  THINGS          263 

ity  to  himself.  After  his  battling  with  the  Maynooth  men 
on  Elsie's  behalf  this  was  anything  but  cheering,  and  he 
thought  Elsie's  attitude,  or  her  perseverance  therein,  an 
amazing  outcome  and  expression  of  ruffled  sensibility. 
In  his  brief  appearances  by  the  domestic  hearth  and  board 
he  gave  way  to  a  certain  habit  of  irony,  treating  the  gleam 
of  the  interesting  rapier-tempers  and  the  darker  mind- 
bursts  of  Maeve  and  Elsie  —  thunder  in  a  clear  and  sunny 
atmosphere  —  with  even  a  touch  of  levity.  It  was  not 
the  philosophic  way,  and  he  soon  regretted  it.  But 
unreasonable  young  ladies,  an  antique  and  obdurate  print 
ing  machine,  and  offended  clerical  correspondents  are  ex 
ceedingly  trying  even  to  philosophers,  save  those  who 
are  well-nigh  inhuman  and  sternly  on  their  guard. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

FROM  EDEN 


HE  trouble  began  in  the  Dalkey 
household  the  day  that  Maeve  read 
Elsie's  article.  She  obtained  a  fan 
tastic  and  facetious  account  of  it 
from  Fergus  beforehand,  and  the 
gleam  behind  her  glasses  was  cold 
and  questioning  when  she  heard  of 
"  The  Clergy  "  and  at  once  frozen 
and  affrighted  when  she  heard  of 
"  Nature."  There  was  much  in  Na 
ture's  procedure  of  which  Maeve  by 
no  means  approved.  She  felt  that  Nature  was  in  many 
ways  in  subtle  antagonism  to  the  Church  ;  indeed  in  her 
imagination  Nature  was  for  ever  on  the  point  of  being 
placed  on  an  infinite  Index.  All  the  good  and  gracious 
things  attributed  to  Nature  could  not  disguise  her  peren 
nial  "  Paganism."  The  fact  that  Elsie  had  stood  up  for 
Nature  was  a  lamentable  proof  of  the  deteriorating  effect 
of  Paris  on  a  gentle  Irish  character.  She  awaited  the 
printed  article  with  concern  and  trepidation.  When  at 
last  she  read  it  she  retired  to  her  own  room  and  was  not 
seen  until  the  next  morning.  Elsie  mentioned  it  at  break- 


DESERTERS  FROM  EDEN  265 

fast,  but  Maeve  put  up  her  hands  and  said  pleadingly: 
"  Don't,  Elsie !  We  must  not.  quarrel  during  your  holi 
days." 

It  was  just  at  this  stage  that  Arthur  O'Mara  reappeared 
at  Dalkey.  He  had  apparently  quite  got  over  his  tragic 
determination  to  drown  himself  for  Maeve  and  unrequited 
love.  Illogically  enough  that  serene  and  austere  young 
lady  was  grievously  disappointed  at  the  quickness  with 
which  he  had  overcome  his  fever  and  mocked  herself  in 
her  heart  over  her  painful  pilgrimage  to  the  cliffs  of" 
Howth.  She  was  glad  that  he  did  not  want  any  longer 
to  die  for  her  and  was  relieved  at  the  obvious  cooling  of 
his  love ;  he  was  full  of  a  new  poem  in  which  he  had  tried 
to  set  a  portion  of  Spinoza's  philosophy  in  solution  and 
this  was  palpably  unlike  a  distracted  lover.  But  she 
thought  that  for  the  sake  of  romance  and  dignity  his 
stricken  heart's  convalescence  ought  to  extend  over  at 
least  a  fortnight.  Recovery  in  a  few  days  was  indecently 
hasty. 

To  crown  the  comedy  his  immediate  and  open  prefer 
ence  for  Elsie  was  betrayed  with  the  naivete  and  ingenu 
ousness  of  a  child  for  a  toy.  This  appealed  engagingly 
to  Elsie's  sense  of  the  ironical  and  the  ridiculous,  and 
partly  for  the  fun  of  the  thing  and  partly  by  way  of 
revenge  for  Maeve's  cloudy-and-lightning  solemnity  over 
the  article,  even  though  already  it  distressed  herself,  she 
played  with  the  young  man's  feelings  pleasantly.  After 
half  an  hour  of  it  Maeve  took  up  her  Bossuet  coldly. 

"  Really,  Maeve/'  said  Arthur,,  "  you  overdo  Bossuet 
altogether.  He  is  making  you  old  before  your  time.  You 
know  he  rather  ignores  the  region  of  the  heart." 


266  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

"  So  does  every  deep  and  learned  mind,"  said  Maeve, 
looking  up  from  the  page  with  an  expression  that  suggest 
ed  the  Arctic  wastes ;  "  the  heart  of  man  is  something 
inexpressibly  feathery  and  foolish." 

"  Theologians  must  recognize  the  charm  and  the  angelic 
nature  of  woman  and  the  beauty  of  life,"  said  Arthur. 
"  That  is  perhaps  the  chief  problem  before  Churchmen  in 
the  future.  What  they  Ve  called  Woman  so  far  is  a 
mixture  of  diseased  melodrama  and  nightmare." 

"And  you  have  found  her  an  idyll  yearning  for  the  stars 
when  she  is  not  at  prayer,"  suggested  Elsie  sweetly. 

"  You  doubtless  speak  from  a  profound  and  varied 
experience  of  the  sex,"  interjected  Maeve  ironically. 

"  I  speak  from  instinct,"  replied  Arthur,  "  but  I  hope 
to  speak  from  a  large  and  liberal  experience  later  on." 

"  You  have  progressed  in  a  wonderfully  short  time 
from  Adam  to  Bluebeard.  You  '11  outdistance  the  rest 
of  the  race  so  much  that  you  '11  be  solitary  and  very 
lonely,"  said  Maeve. 

"  Why  do  you  persist  in  being  so  stiff-necked  and 
conventional  ?  "  asked  Arthur.  "  It  is  not  worthy  of  your 
keen  and  alert  mind.  Bluebeard  is  melodrama  in  the 
sphere  of  imagination  just  as  Brigham  Young  is  melo 
drama  in  the  region  of  actuality.  While  I  hope  for  a 
large  and  liberal  experience  of  womankind  our  relations 
are  to  be  unflinchingly  and  beautifully  moral.  If  it  is  an 
education  for  a  young  man  to  associate  much  with  other 
young  men,  as  in  a  university,  how  much  more  of  an 
education  is  it  for  him  to  associate  much  with  young 
women,  with  all  their  finer  nature  and  charm " 


DESERTERS  FROM    EDEN  267 

"  I  've  heard  a  great  deal  about  the  Irish  University 
question,"  said  Elsie,  "  but  this  is  the  most  attractive  and 
original  contribution  yet.  I  doubt  however  that  it  would 
satisfy  the  bishops." 

"  I  only  propose  to  satisfy  myself,"  said  Arthur.  "  It 
was  told  in  Maynooth  that  I  had  too  much  of  the  artistic 
temperament,  and  I  believe  the  subtle  glamor  of  femin 
inity  is  essential  to  the  life  of  the  artistic  temperament. 
Anyhow,  I  feel  that  way.  I  want  woman  comrades  that 
I  can  cherish  and  worship.  But  I  detest  what  you  call 
entangling  alliances  and  all  that  sort  of  thing." 

"  You  will  please  understand,"  said  Maeve  coldly,  "  that 
we  do  not  discuss  or  think  of  such  things." 

"  But  your  mind  jumps  to  them  when  the  association 
or  comradeship  of  unmarried  young  men  and  women  is 
mentioned,"  retorted  Arthur.  "  What  I  mean  is  intellec 
tual  and  really  romantic  association,  but  on  a  strictly 
moral  basis." 

"  I  've  heard  of  that  sort  of  thing  being  tried,  but  with 
doubtful  success  from  the  moral  point  of  view,"  said 
Maeve  severely. 

"  I  don't  care  what  has  been  tried,"  said  Arthur.  "  I 
know  my  own  mind  and  feelings,  and  I  mean  to  follow 
them.  I  'm  sure  that  refining  and  joyous  association, 
without  either  immorality  or  melodrama,  is  possible  be 
tween  men  and  women.  Man  hasn't  been  allowed  a  fair 
chance  of  understanding  and  appreciating  woman's  mind 
as  yet.  There  has  been  a  chasm  between  them,  and  in 
Ireland  it  is  only  bridged  by  the  risky  and  often  premature 
experiment  of  marriage.  If  a  man  marries  the  wrong 
woman  he  can't  fairly  appreciate  her  mind  or  cultivate 


268  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

his  own.  It  may  be  necessary  to  love  a  hundred  women 
before  discovering  the  right  one." 

"  What  a  woefully  battered  heart  you  'd  have  to  offer 
the  favored  one  at  last !  "  said  Elsie. 

"  Not  if  every  test  took  less  than  a  week,"  said  Maeve 
meaningly.  "  We  take  love  nowadays  on  a  sort  of  quick- 
lunch  system."  .  .  . 

In  the  ensuing  days,  while  Fergus  strove  steadily  to 
bring  office  affairs  back  to  order,  and  waged  correspon 
dence  with  his  offended  friends  in  Maynooth,  Arthur 
went  down  into  Wicklow  or  over  the  Dublin  hills  on 
excursions  and  rambles  with  Maeve  and  Elsie.  He  talked 
with  fantastic  irresponsibility,  and  behaved  generally  like 
a  child  of  Nature  with  no  care,  or  sense  of  time  and  tide, 
or  touch  of  convention.  Maeve,  who  had  the  art  of  being 
absent-minded  with  dignity,  did  not  always  listen,  and 
sometimes  when  she  did  she  was  annoyed  or  distressed. 
Elsie,  who  had  made  up  her  mind  that  Arthur's  career 
would  end  in  talk,  but  who  felt  that  entertaining  talk 
which  relieves  the  mystery  and  strain  of  existence  had 
its  use  and  purpose,  was  sympathetic  and  agreeable.  On 
hill  and  in  dell  and  heather  Maeve  was  often  struck  with 
a  spell  of  thought  and  brooding;  she  grew  uncommuni- 
cable  and  self-centered,  and  silently  drifted  apart.  Some 
times  she  seated  herself  on  a  ledge  of  rock  or  under  a 
tree  in  the  sunlight  and  lost  herself  in  some  favorite  little 
volume  like  The  Dream  of  Gerontius  or  The  Little 
Floivers  of  St.  Francis,  and  let  the  twentieth  century 
and  its  interests  slip  away.  At  other  times  she  took  out 
her  manuscript-book  and  her  Bossuet,  and  in  the  all- 
golden  afternoon  slowly  translated  a  passage  with  a  calm 


FROM    EDEN  269 

and  poise  unknown  even  in  the  studious  hours  in  the 
little  summer-house  in  the  garden  at  Dalkey.  A  snatch 
of  a  song  of  Arthur's  or  a  burst  of  Elsie's  laughter,  from 
dingle  or  dale  below,  would  bring  her  back  with  a  certain 
sadness  and  gravity  to  the  immediate  world. 

Arthur's  spirit  of  worship  towards  Elsie  grew  obvious 
enough.  Maeve  took  it  as  the  days  went  with  indignant 
seriousness ;  Elsie  regarded  it  at  the  outset  with  laughing 
lightsomeness,  for  she  had  taken  the  measure  of  Master 
Arthur's  heart.  Unhappily  Maeve  felt  it  her  duty  to 
lecture  Elsie  with  a  trying  iteration  on  the  error  of  her 
ways,  and  to  season  her  discourses  with  commentaries  on 
what  she  considered  the  reckless  and  "  revolted  "  points 
in  the  now  famous  article.  These,  and  what  she  deemed 
the  encouragement  of  so  light-headed  and  irresponsible 
a  young  man  as  Arthur  were  proofs  to  her  mind  that 
Elsie  had  reached  a  dangerous  stage,  and  that  her  spirit 
ual  condition  needed  measures  far  from  gentle.  The 
natural  result  was  that  she  and  Elsie  had  several  quarrels 
a  day,  that  the  charm  of  each  was  considerably  ruffled, 
and  that  Elsie  grew  rebellious,  almost  wishing  she 
could  take  Arthur  with  entire  seriousness.  Maeve  at 
length,  when  she  saw  Fergus  in  the  nights  after  toil  and 
strain,  gave  him,  with  the  best  intentions,  sundry  hints 
of  the  kind  that  are  more  harmful  and  suggestive  than 
facts.  She  wanted  him  to  bestir  himself,  and  the  effect 
of  her  friendly  counsel  was  to  engender  a  series  of  vexing 
moods  and  set  his  overtaxed  imagination  on  weary  and 
lonely  wing. 

He  felt  that  there  was  a  change  in  Elsie  to  begin.  In 
sooth  there  was,  but  it  was  not  of  the  nature  he  fancied  — 


270  THE;  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

the  daily  tragi-comedy,  the  little  ruffling  battles  between 
herself  and  Maeve,  were  unknown  to  him.  The  office 
strain  and  demoralization,  the  anger  of  the  Maynooth  men, 
more  serious  news  of  Mr.  Milligan's  illness,  the  disturb 
ing  silence  of  Father  Murray,  his  own  enforced  absence 
from  the  Boyne  Valley  and  the  land,  and  the  home  irrita 
tion,  all  kept  his  mind  in  those  days  out  of  the  eager  and 
constructive  sphere  in  which  it  could  be  happy.  And 
when  his  mind  was  unenkindled  life  pressed  heavily, 
weirdly,  awesomely  —  an  ordeal  and  a  mystery  for  no 
clear  and  definite  goal.  He  felt  in  such  hours  that  the 
only  certain  thing  about  it  was  its  grimness  as  a  tuition- 
place,  its  ever-demanded  sacrifice  and  disappointment  for 
the  sake  of  some  far-off  end,  some  long-to"-be- sought  per 
fection,  whose  enjoyment  could  never  be  here  below,  but 
in  another  stage  and  star. 

In  this  shadowed  spirit  he  reached  home  one  night 
at  a  late  hour.  Maeve  and  Elsie  had  had  another  clash 
of  mood  and  temper.  It  was  more  severe  than  usual  to 
begin,  and  unhappily  the  minds  of  both  had  a  habit  of 
growing  more  alert  and  valiant  as  night  deepened  and 
morning  approached.  The  spirit  of  contention  was  strong 
upon  them  when  he  entered. 

He  wearily  asked  the  meaning  of  the  trouble. 

"  It  means  several  things,"  said  Maeve,  "  and  one  of 
them  is  that  you,  at  all  events,  are  living  in  a  fool's 
paradise." 

Whereupon  she  retired  in  her  regal  way. 

"  I  'm  sorry  for  all  this,  Elsie,"  said  Fergus  gloomily, 
as  he  sank  into  an  armchair.  "  It 's  a  painful  waste  of 
energy.  Maeve  is  giving  herself  an  unnecessary  deal  of 


DESERTERS  PROM  EDEN  271 

trouble.  There  is  no  need  to  think  of  me  at  all.  My 
course  is  marked  out  for  me,  and  need  irritate  nobody 
in  Ireland." 

The  thought  of  Alice  Lefanu  shot  through  Elsie's 
mind.  Of  the  mood  in  which  Fergus  happened  to  be 
she  had  no  idea  whatever. 

"  You  surely  don't  mean  to  suggest  that  you  be 
lieve "  She  was  on  the  point  of  making  mention 

of  the  comedy  with  Arthur  O'Mara,  but  hesitated.  It 
was  too  absurd,  too  unreal. 

"  What  I  really  believe,"  he  said,  "  is  that  life  if  it 's 
to  be  anything  in  particular  must  be  one  of  renunciation 
and  sacrifice.  What  I  hoped  and  planned  about  you, 
Elsie,  was  too  good  to  be  true  in  this  world,  but  I  'm  not 
afraid  of  renunciation." 

"  Then  you  're  worse  than  Maeve,  and  you  believe  — 
oh,  Fergus !  Fergus !  "  she  said ;  and  opening  the  door 
and  closing  it  hastily  was  out  of  sight  before  he  could 
speak. 

Fergus  started  to  his  feet  as  he  heard  her  steps  on  the 
stairs.  He  had  not  reckoned  on  this  abrupt  departure. 
He  called  after  her,  but  no  answer  came,  and  he  heard 
the  door  of  her  room  close  in  a  few  minutes. 

It  struck  him  that  he  had  made  a  bad  blunder,  and 
that  Elsie  had  quite  misunderstood  his  frame  of  mind, 
and  the  shspdowed  sphere  into  which  he  had  let  his  ima 
gination  run.  He  had  been  impelled  to  say  something 
darksome  and  tragical,  to  play  gloomily  with  the  idea 
of  renunciation,  and  then,  having  teased  his  own  imagin 
ation  and  hers,  he  knew  he  would  drift  naturally  into 


272  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

sunniness  of  mind  and  temper,  and  the  usual  harmony 
would  come.  But  Elsie's  tense  and  serious  mood  had 
played  havoc  with  that  little  drama.  He  felt  indignant 
with  himself,  and  wondered  if  anybody  else  on  the  shores 
of  Dublin  Bay  had  so  erratic  a  temperament  as  he.  He 
hoped  not,  most  devoutly. 

He  had  sometimes,  in  far  brighter  hours,  allowed  his 
imagination  the  darksome  luxury  of  picturing  Elsie  in 
unfriendly,  unresponsive,  hostile  guise,  and  he  himself 
quite  forlorn  and  uncared  for  and  battling  wearily  with 
the  chilled  world.  But  to  put  the  mood  into  words  before 
Elsie  herself  was  utter  fatuity. 

Late  as  it  was,  and  full  of  stress  and  strain  though 
the  day  had  been  he  could  not  think  of  retiring  to  rest. 
He  had  the  hope  for  a  long  time  that  Elsie  might  think 
better  of  it  and  come  downstairs  again.  At  long  last 
he  gave  up  the  hope.  He  went  out,  and  up  a  lonely 
hill  road  to  where,  under  the  silent  glory  of  the  stars, 
he  had  a  view  of  the  Bay  with  the  dimness  of  the  inland 
hills  and  Binn  Eadar  of  the  Fianna,  beyond  the  waters. 
He  wondered  if  the  Fianna,  those  mighty  and  joyous  hun 
ters  and  warriors  of  the  brave  days  of  old,  had  their  own 
tormenting  moods  and  questionings,  or  were  they  ever 
as  elemental  as  the  story-tellers  suggested,  asking  ques 
tions  only  of  men  and  not  of  the  gods  ?  Then  he  thought 
of  many  friends  in  far  lands,  from  under  northern  pines 
to  the  Southern  Cross,  who  would  give  much  —  ah,  how 
much !  —  to  be  able  to  gaze  on  that  storied  and  alluringly 
beautiful  scene  before  and  around  him  —  old  comrades 
who  must  often  feel  like  a  bright,  broken  friend  of  his 
London  years: 


DESERTERS  FROM  EDEN  273 

In  hunger  of  the  heart   I  loathe 

These    happy   fields;     I    turn    with    tears 

Of   love   and   longing   far  away 
To    where    the    heathered    Hill    of    Howth 
Stands    guardian,    with    the    Golden    Spears, 
Above  the   blue   of   Dublin    Bay. 

And  what  a  wonderful  panorama  it  was  to  be  sure!  — 
looking  from  the  firmament  to  it  there  was  no  sense 
of  anti-climax,  only  kinship.  In  the  silent,  revealing 
night  the  soul  was  conscious  of  a  kindred  spirit  in  the 
star-watched  waters  and  a  kindred  identity  in  the  mys 
terious  hills,  a  sense  of  the  illimitable  divinity  permeating 
all  the  spheres  and  glowing  into  points  of  eternal  light 
in  the  higher  consciousness  of  man.  .  .  . 

Fergus  O'Hagan  hardly  knew  whether  to  smile  or 
sigh  at  the  memory  of  his  own  ineptitude  in  letting 
trivialities  like  a  crazy  printing-machine,  compositors' 
racked  nerves,  and  little  personal  ebullitions  of  temper 
come  between  him  and  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  In 
the  end  he  felt  mightily  ashamed  of  himself.  On  the 
silent  height,  looking  over  from  Ath  Cliath  to  where  the 
waters  grew  dim,  he  felt  that  man  was  a  stupendous 
fool :  the  tragedy  was  not  altogether  that  in  an  undated 
age  in  the  long  ago  he  was  false  to  the  light  that  would 
have  kept  him  in  Eden,  but  that  he  wilfully  and  blindly 
persisted  in  deserting  and  shutting  himself  out  of  Eden 
every  day  of  all  the  years  of  time. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 


TKNANTS-AT-WII.lv    IN    THE}    WORLD 

>EXT  day  was  Saturday  and  Fergus 
was  much  concerned  about  office 
affairs,  and  anxious  to  be  in  town 
early.  He  was  more  concerned,  how 
ever  about  Elsie,  and  the  explanation 
of  the  mood  of  the  previous  night. 
He  had  many  poetical  and  delectable 
things  in  his  mind  to  say,  for  the 
hour  on  the  hill  above  the  sea  had 
uplifted  his  spirit,  and  morning  near 
ly  always  brought  a  sense  of  mental 
rejuvenation.  He  resolved  that  he  would  be  tenderly 
careful  henceforward  of  Elsie's  sensibilities;  nobody  had 
reason  to  know  better  than  he  the  delicacy  and  sensitive 
ness  of  her  character,  for  all  its  laughing,  lightsome  play. 
She  had  a  child's  nature  though  a  woman's  mind.  He 
waited  a  considerable  time  after  breakfast,  but  neither 
she  nor  Maeve  appeared.  At  last  disappointed  and  heavy- 
hearted  he  had  to  fare  forth. 

He  found  office  matters  calmer,  the  machine  running 
serenely,  and  the  foreman  so  far  on  the  road  to  optimism 
as  to  admit  that  though  the  case-room  had  much  in 


3 


TENANTS-AT-WILIv   IN   THE   WORLD  2/5 

common  with  a  convalescent  home  it  was  not  absolutely 
impossible  to  convert  it  into  a  printing  establishment. 
His  tired-minded  comps  were  not  dead  anyway,  and 
while  there  was  life  there  was  hope. 

The  cheer  of  these  comforting  tidings  were  soon,  how 
ever,  dissipated.  Fergus  had  an  alarming  message  about 
Mr.  Milligan's  illness,,  and  a  telegram  came  from  Father 
Kenealy  declaring  that  he  wanted  to  see  him  especially, 
that  afternoon  or  evening  if  at  all  possible ;  there  had 
been  an  astonishing  development. 

Fergus  saw  that  he  must  go  down  to  the  Boyne 
Valley,  and  he  thought  that  to  spend  the  week-end  there 
would  be  the  happiest  course  for  Maeve  and  Elsie.  So 
he  sent  an  express  letter  to  Maeve,  telling  her  how  matters 
stood,  and  asking  herself  and  Elsie  to  come  down  by 
the  last  train ;  he  would  go  in  the  afternoon  himself. 
He  wrote  in  cheery  strain,  and  pictured  the  balms  and 
joys  of  the  Valley  for  sensitive  and  spirited  imagin 
ations.  .  .  . 

Father  Kenealy  met  him  at  Baile  na  Boinne  station, 
and  said  he  would  walk  with  him  along  the  Valley  to 
Cluainlumney. 

"  It  will  be  our  last  ramble  together  and  our  last  chat 
for  a  long  time,"  he  said  quietly.  "  I  am  leaving  Ireland 
almost  at  once."  0 

Fergus  was  amazed  and  could  scarcely  credit  or  grasp 
the  fact  at  once.  In  his  imagination  Father  Kenealy 
was  as  much  an  integral  part  of  the  new  Ireland  in 
which  he  worked,  and  for  which  his  hopes  were  so  high, 
as  the  Boyne  Valley  was  of  Meath.  The  idea  of  his 
removal  was  for  the  nonce  unthinkable. 


276  TH£   PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

"  I  was  rather  astonished  myself  at  first,"  said  Father 
Kenealy.  "  In  truth  it  staggered  me.  But  after  all  a 
priest  must  be  prepared  for,  or  at  least  must  get  used  to, 
surprises.  He  must  not  set  his  heart  too  much  on 
anything  temporal.  My  going  is  at  the  bishop's  command, 
politely  expressed  as  at  once  a  desire  and  a  compliment. 
Where?  Well,  it  seems  somewhat  romantic  on  the  face 
of  it.  I  am  to  be  away  for  possibly  three  years,  collecting 
funds,  at  first  amongst  the  Irish  of  Scotland  and  England, 
and  then  amongst  the  Irish  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand, 
for  the  erection  of  a  great  church,  to  be  dedicated  to  St. 
Patrick,  on  the  Hill  of  Tara." 

"  Good  gracious !  "  exclaimed  Fergus.  "  What  is  the 
purpose  of  such  a  church  on  Tara?  —  Tara  in  the  grassy 
wilderness.  Has  his  lordship  become  a  dreamer  of 
dreams?  " 

"  Well,  you  see/'  replied  Father  Kenealy,  "  they  are 
planning  a  church  on  Cruach  Phadraig  in  the  West,  since 
the  annual  pilgrimages  have  re-started.  The  bishop  thinks 
that  Tara  might  become  a  haunt  of  pilgrimages  too, 
and  he  is  anxious  to  have  the  church " 

"  Yet  I  find  that  he  could  not  see  his  way  to  fall  in 
with  Mr.  Milligan's  great  scheme,  which  would  give  a 
new  life  to  Meath.  Mr.  Milligan  has  been  intensely 
grieved " 

"  Ah,  that  was  a  social  scheme  at  basis,"  replied  Father 
Kenealy,  "  and  you  cannot  fire  the  minds  of  our  bishops 
over  social  schemes.  Maybe  'tis  just  as  well.  The  people 
will  see,  soon  or  late,  that  socially  they  must  depend  on 
themselves.  It  will  bring  out  their  latent  power  and 
develop  their  hidden  character." 


TENANTS-AT-WIU,   IN   THE   WORLD  2/7 

"  I  must  say  that  the  Tara  fund  scheme  is  entirely 
unconvincing  to  me/'  declared  Fergus ;  "  or  at  any  rate 
there  's  something  more  in  the  wind.  The  bishop  must 
have  heard  of  your  advanced  ideas,  and  is  anxious  to 
have  you  out  of  the  way.  There  has  been  as  much 
talk  over  the  practical  Christianity  as  if  we  had  urged 
a  revolution.  Your  removal  is  the  beginning  of  the 
battle." 

"  They  think  similarly  in  the  Seminary/'  Father  Ken- 
ealy  admitted.  "  But  of  course,  it  is  simply  a  theory. 
We  do  not  know  one  way  or  the  other.  I  admit  that  it  is 
a  blow  to  me,  but  in  the  circumstances  what  can  I  do  but 
bow  and  bear  it?  A  few  priests  can  make  no  serious 
stand  till  the  great  spirit  has  had  time  to  work.  Doubtless 
the  time  is  not  ripe  for  such  work  as  I  contemplated, 
though  I  hoped  to  help  to  ripen  it.  And  in  one  sense 
three  years  are  not  much  —  a  fragment  in  a  life.  With 
God's  help  I  shall  return  with  new  and  greater  energy. 
We  shall  all  be  disappointed  if  we  expect  immediate 
miracles.  Endure,  endure " 

"  A  great  deal  may  happen  in  three  years,"  said  Fergus 
ruefully.  "  Things  are  coming  to  a  critical  stage  and 
your  loss  will  be  grievous.  I  cannot  tell  you  how  pain 
fully  it  affects  me,  and  in  the  days  to  come  I  '11  realize  it 
a  great  deal  more  keenly.  'Tis  the  first  bad  blow  against 
Young  Ireland,  and  there  is  no  use  in  minimizing  it." 

"  That  is  not  quite  the  right  way  to  look  at  things. 
One  of  our  weaknesses  in  Ireland  is  trusting  too  much 
to  particular  personalities  and  leaders.  'Tis  dangerous 
and  'tis  unwise.  Depending  too  much  on  the  leaders,  we 
neglect  our  own  development  and  power,  and  we  and  the 


278  THE    PLOUGH    AND   THE   CROSS 

nation  remain  so  much  the  poorer  in  consequence.  Each 
must  work  as  if  everything  depended  upon  himself." 

"  We  certainly  have  a  weakness  for  being  led,"  said 
Fergus ;  "  but  when  men  are  looking  to  and  following 
high-minded  leaders,  they  may  be  unconsciously  uplifting 
and  developing  themselves.  They  rise  with  the  leaders, 
and  their  mental  life  is  far  greater  than  if  the  leaders 
were  not.  A  real  leader,  like  a  great  figure  in  hero-story 
or  literature,  is  a  world  in  himself,  and  has  a  creative 
effect  on  the  racial  mind.  We  have  all  grown  with  Fionn 
and  Cuchulainn  since  our  youth,  and  we  are  growing  to 
day  with  men  like  An  Craoibhin." 

"That  is  true,"  said  Father  Kenealy;  "but  for  my 
part  I  want  to  get  down  more  and  more  amongst  the 
so-called  '  common  people.'  I  want  to  get  at  their  real 
minds,  in  their  working  hours  and  in  their  hours  of 
recreation.  I  don't  mean  —  and  they  know  I  don't  mean 
—  as  a  priest  who  wants  to  moralize  or  lecture  them,  but 
just  as  a  fellow  man  who  is  interested  in  all  they  feel 
and  dream,  in  everything  from  their  rhymes  and  riddles 
to  their  ghosts.  Our  friends  in  the  Cluainlumney  cot 
tages  have  been  a  god-send  to  me.  In  the  last  couple 
of  weeks  when  you  were  so  engrossed  in  Dublin,  I  spent 
evening  after  evening  with  them,  and  I  have  a  fresher 
and  simpler  heart  to  bear  my  new  burden  in  consequence. 
I  wish  to  the  Lord  that  we  had  in  Maynooth  and  the 
diocesan  colleges  staffs  of  deep-hearted  professors  of 
Irish  rural  human  nature." 

"  I  know  the  feeling  well,"  said  Fergus.  "  I  have  not 
to  educate  myself  into  it,  for  I  grew  up  amongst  the 
real  people.  My  only  fear  is  that  I  might  possibly  educate 


TENANTS-AT-WIU,   IN   THE   WORLD  279 

myself  out  of  it,  or  that  our  problems  and  ideals  might 
carry  me  too  far  away  from  it.  Latterly  I  've  had  spells 
when  I  apparently  lost  or  forgot  it  —  Dubliners  are  di 
vorced  from  the  land  and  largely  spoiled  —  and  the  fact 
has  disturbed  me.  Yet  I  think  it  has  been  there  all  the 
same." 

Father  Kenealy  walked  on  in  silence  for  a  while. 

"  What  troubles  me  most  about  my  going,"  he  said 
after  the  silent  spell,  "  is  that  I  shall  be  away  for  the 
most  part  from  the  people  where  I  want  to  see  them,  and 
in  the  way  I  want  to  see  and  meet  them.  I  love  our  Irish 
people  least  in  crowds.  I  '11  come  back,  please  God,  to 
Irish  country  life  with  the  heart  of  a  boy  for  his  holidays." 

When  they  reached  Cluainlumney  they  first  walked 
round  by  the  cottages  and  the  gardens,  Father  Kenealy 
chatting  with  everybody  with  peculiar  warmth  and  hearti 
ness. 

"  They  did  not  know  I  was  really  saying  good-bye  — 
in  my  own  way,"  he  said  to  Fergus,  as  they  came  away. 
His  quiet  tone  gave  no  hint  of  the  emotion  he  felt,  but 
Fergus  understood. 

"  Many  a  night  I  '11  dream  of  it,"  continued  Father 
Kenealy  to  himself ;  "  many  a  night  in  English  mining 
towns  and  by  Australian  seas."  And  then  he  added, 
'turning  to  Fergus :  "  Remember,  if  rural  Ireland  dies, 
the  root  dies.  But,  please  God,  'tis  fated  not  to  die." 

As  they  approached  the  old  house  Sean  O'Carroll  came 
up  the  avenue.  His  face  was  heavy  with  an  unwonted 
gravity.  Even  his  eyes  were  cold. 

"  Ye  didn't  hear  the  black  news  ?  "  he  asked,  and  their 
eyes  answered  his  question.  "  Poor  Mr.  Milligan  is  dead, 


28<D  THK    PLOUGH    AND   TH£   CROSS 

and  the  people  are  heart-broken.  Beannacht  dilis  De 
leri  an  am!"  * 

Fergus  was  so  staggered  that  for  a  minute  or  two  he 
could  not  utter  a  word.  Father  Kenealy  remained  silent 
also  for  a  spell,  while  his  lips  moved  as  if  in  prayer. 
Sean  O'Carroll,  his  head  bent,  walked  slowly  over  towards 
the  cottages. 

"  The  man  that  Meath,  if  not  Ireland,  wants  most,  is 
taken  from  us/'  said  Fergus  at  last.  "  God  rest  him  and 
help  us.  Such  things  make  the  mystery  and  purpose  of 
life  seem  dark." 

"  We  were  talking  of  rural  Ireland  —  and  one  of  its 
saviors  is  gone  to  God.  Do  you  think  that  Mr.  Milligan's 
death  will  make  any  serious  difference  with  the  land 
schemes  and  Fainne  an  Laef  "  asked  Father  Kenealy. 

"  It  is  not  easy  to  say  yet,"  replied  Fergus  slowly. 
"  Mr.  Milligan's  people  have  not  his  feeling  or  his  char 
acter,  but  they  have  been  very  loyal  to  him,  and  I  think 
will  be  loyal  to  his  ideas  for  his  sake.  But  the  loss  of  his 
grand  individuality,  his  insight,  and  his  courage,  is  a 
grievous  blow.  He  gave  Meath  a  new  meaning  for 
Ireland,  and  I  can't  believe  yet  that  we  '11  see  him  in  the 
fields  no  more." 

"  It  has  happened  again  and  again  in  Ireland's  story," 
Father  Kenealy  said,  "  that  the  man  who  seemed  to  be 
needed  most  of  all  —  who  was  leading,  teaching,  directing 
—  was  stricken  down,  and  then  confusion  or  stagnation 
came.  We  have  had  a  disastrous  habit  of  over-idealizing 
leaders,  and  despairing  or  quarreling  when  they  have  been 

*  God's  blessing  with  his  soul !  —  a  familiar  Irish  prayer  for 
the  departed. 


TENANTS-AT-WILJ,   IN    TH£   WORLD  28l 

taken  away.  The  greater  art  of  learning  the  best  from 
them,  and  ourselves,  and  continuing  their  work  has  not 
been  ours  as  a  rule.  If  we  only  could  get  the  many  to 
think  and  build  for  themselves!  Then  there  would  be 
continuity  and  national  evolution." 

"  It  was  poor  Mr.  Milligan's  aim  to  inspire  the  masses 
with  an  ordered  and  holy  passion  for  doing  and  minding 
their  own  business/'  said  Fergus,  as  if  to  himself.  .  .  . 

Maeve  and  Elsie  did  not  come  on  the  last  train.  Fergus 
went  away  wearily  from  the  station,  and  found  Baile  na 
Boinne  intensely  depressing  and  blank.  At  Cluainlumney 
there  was  a  telegram  from  Father  Murray,  saying  that 
he  was  again  at  Mr.  Wightman's  and  would  come  over 
next  day.  He  added  that  his  heart  was  low.  Fergus 
wondered  if  the  news  of  Mr.  Milligan's  death  had  already 
reached  him. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  experience  Fergus  had  a 
poignant  evening  in  the  Boyne  Valley.  He  had  a  feeling 
of  sheer,  strange  loneliness,  and  when  night  came  he 
could  almost  imagine  he  felt  the  looming  and  gathering 
of  dim  but  vast  and  impalpable  forces  behind  the  veil  of 
sense. 

After  a  long  time  he  shook  away  the  oppressive  burden, 
and  mind  and  spirit  seemed  clarified  and  strengthened 
after  the  ordeal.  Death  after  all,  was  but  an  incident  of 
change,  an  essential  turning  in  our  time-and-space  stage, 
the  end  of  a  chapter  and  a  starting  point.  Mr.  Milligan 
had  finished  his  spell  in  the  fields  of  Meath ;  there  were 
farther  and  farther  fields,  millions  of  them  maybe,  to  be 
reached,  stage  by  stage,  in  the  eternal  life-scale,  the  tilling 
ever  more  subtle,  the  harvests  ever  more  golden  and 


282  THE:  pivOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

more  wondrous.  Here  in  the  fields  of  Meath  and  of 
Eire  they  who  remained  had  begun  to  till  and  think,  and 
had  no  more  than  dimly  realized  as  yet  the  end  of  the 
tilling  and  the  thought.  In  a  quiet,  obscure  way  they 
realized  that  both  were  joyful  and  good ;  but  they  would 
learn  more  and  more  as  they  wrought  and  thought.  In 
the  stress  and  joyance  of  the  tilling  and  the  thinking  they 
would  bring  forth  not  only  the  deeper  fruitfulness  of 
the  earth,  but  the  finer  intelligence  that  was  latent  in 
themselves;  and  thus  they  would  co-operate  in  their 
own  way  and  land  with  the  purposive  activity  of  the 
cosmos.  Thus  would  hand  and  mind  shape  ever  towards 
the  Christ-consciousness,  "  Ye  are  in  Me,  and  I  in  you." 
"  I  and  the  Father  are  one."  Tilling  and  thought  were 
steps  to  Life. 


NEAR 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

BOI/TS  FROM  THE  BLUE 

ET  us  go  down  by  the  river-side,"  said  Father 
Martin  Murray,  when  he  came  over  on  Sun 
day,    "  a   talk   in   the    sunlight   to   the   mag 
nificent  accompaniment  of  the  Boyne 
should  do  the  heart  good." 

Fergus  noted  with  concern  that  he 
was  pale  and  careworn.  The  visit  to 
the  country  had  wrought  him  no  good 
physically.  As  they  walked  to  the 
waterside  he  spoke  with  great  feeling 
of  the  loss  of  Mr.  Milligan:  just  when  the  harvest  of 
his  ideas  was  so  abundant,  and  when  his  exemplary 
work  bade  fair  to  advance  bravely  to  fruition. 

"  He  is  gone,  but  he  has  set  the  great  headlines, 
and  may  his  memory  become  an  inspiring  and  com 
pelling  tradition,"  he  said.  "  Dead  leaders  have  been 
sometimes  the  greatest  of  leaders,  fulfilling  and  direct 
ing  through  the  spirit  what  they  could  not  compass  in 
their  bodily  days.  The  time  of  men's  passing  from  our 
earthly  vision  seems  often  premature  and  unfitting  and 
incomprehensible,  but  who  knows  the  full  story?  We 
are  troubled  and  puzzled  at  the  going  and  the  passing, 
but  be  sure  it  is  well,  and  has  its  hidden  justification. 


286  THE  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

And  enough  remain  to  do  the  great  deeds  and  to  make 
the  land's  life  golden.  Alas,  after  thousands  of  years 
of  civilization  man  has  not  really  roused  himself  yet, 
and  made  the  world's  inner  and  outer  life  the  spacious 
paradise  it  could  be.  We  complain  of  grassy,  unpro 
ductive  Meath,  and  the  social  waste  it  is ;  but  in  the 
world's  intellectual  and  spiritual  order  there  is  many 
and  many  a  Meath.  Hundreds  are  ready  to  rush  away 
and  dig  in  Klondyke;  few  think  of  the  gold-fields  under 
their  feet  and  the  obscured  Edens  in  their  minds  and 
souls.  My  dear  boy,  you  must  keep  reminding  Ireland 
of  intensive  culture  —  of  her  mind  no  less  than  of  her 
soil.  We  '11  never  exhaust  the  interest  and  meaning 
of  that  august  saying,  '  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is 
within  you.' 

"  You  are  to  labor  in  your  own  way  on  a  grand  home 
mission,"  he  continued,  when  they  reached  the  river-side, 
"  perhaps  you  do  not  fully  understand  your  felicity  and 
your  opportunity.  You  see  clouds  on  the  horizon,  you 
see  idlers  on  the  ditches,  you  hear  complainings  where 
there  should  be  song  and  sympathy;  it  may  be  that 
stones  are  thrown  in  your  direction  from  time  to  time. 
But  remember  how  golden  is  the  field  itself,  and  how 
many  a  young  mind  you  can  cheer  and  hearten  and  direct, 
and  how  congenial  and  vigorous  you  can  make  your  own 
mental  life  —  racy  as  your  country's  earth,  high  as  the 
eternal  stars." 

"  I  often  feel  that  fine  spirit ;  the  sense  and  purpose 
of  life  come  upon  me  like  a  tide  of  joy,  especially  in 
hours  that  are  silent  and  aloof,"  said  Fergus.  "  But 
sometimes  in  the  distracting  days,  when  I  am  looking 


BOI/TS  FROM  THE:  BLUE;  287 

outside  myself,  I  am  tormented  and  depressed,  and  I 
have  to  pull  myself  up  sharply.  The  everyday  world 
often  seems  a  trivial  and  vexing  conspiracy  to  dull  and 
blind  us  to  the  sense  of  the  greater  Identity  of  which  we, 
or  at  least  our  spiritual  selves,  are  part." 

"  True,  true/'  said  Father  Murray,  and  then  he  con 
tinued  in  a  lower  tone : 

"  I  feel  your  priceless  privilege  today,  my  last  for  a 
long  time  on  Irish  earth  and  amidst  the  true  Gaelic 
freemasonry  of  kindness.  Tomorrow  I  go  back  to  exile. 
I  think  of  Dante's  line : 

Per  me  si  va  nella  citta  dolente. 

The  rest  of  the  quotation  would  be  too  gloomy,  and 
happily  inappropriate."  Fergus  stopped  in  amazement. 

"  Surely,"  he  said,  "  we  are  going  to  have  you  at  work 
at  home  in  Ireland " 

"  Alas,  it  is  not  to  be.  The  bishop  drew  back  in  the 
end.  I  cannot  quite  understand  it  all,  but  it  is  part  of 
my  life's  trial.  It  appears  I  am  too  advanced  in  my 
ideas  and  too  rosy  in  my  hopes  for  the  Church  in  Ireland. 
I  am  described  as  an  educated  idealist  who  might  want 
reforms  here  and  there,  and  courage,  enthusiasm  and 
progress  everywhere,  and  this  it  seems  would  be  putting 
new  wine  into  old  bottles,  and  the  poor  dear  old  Irish 
bottles  must  not  be  tampered  with."  He  spoke  with 
kindly  irony,  but  Fergus  was  in  grimmer  mood. 

"  What  is  the  secret  of  these  amazing  moves  ? "  he 
asked.  "  Father  Kenealy,  the  bravest  and  most  Christ 
ian-minded  of  the  young  home  priests,  is  being  banished, 
and  you,  the  most  philosophic  and  far-seeing  of  those 
abroad,  are  not  to  be  allowed  to  come  and  work  in 


288  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

Ireland.  And  the  spirit  of  young  Maynooth  is  being 
watched  and  checked.  What  really  is  the  matter  with 
our  bishops?" 

"  We  must  follow  the  Gleam  and  the  Cause,  and 
make  light  of  all  obstacles,"  said  Father  Murray  quietly. 
"  We  can  expect  nothing  helpful  from  the  bishops  on 
any  question  concerning  Irish  nationality.  Nay,  be  for 
ever  on  your  guard  when  they  speak  on  any  issue  be 
tween  Ireland  and  England.  And  don't  look  to  them 
for  anything  more  than  a  circumspect  and  conservative 
Christianity.  The  master-minds  and  the  apostolic  spirits 
are  with  the  past  —  yet  we  can  ever  revive  them  in  our 
souls.  But  speak  gently,  charitably  and  feelingly  of  the 
bishops  always.  Remember  that  they  live  in  an  age  and 
an  environment  two  hundred  years  old,  two  hundred 
years  earlier  than  our  own.  When  we  speak  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  being  realized  in  the  Irish  nation 
they  think  we  preach  some  strange  new  doctrine.  Do 
you  know  any  of  the  bishops  personally?" 

"  My  old  parish  priest  has  been  for  some  time  the 
Bishop  of  Dun  na  Riogh.  I  learned  many  liberal  ideas 
from  him  when  I  was  growing  up.  He  was  rather  a 
man  of  the  people,  but  he  has  been  curiously  quiet  since 
he  became  a  bishop." 

"  The  usual  story,"  said  Father  Murray  sadly.  "  Our 
bishops  appear  to  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  peculiar  timid 
ity.  None  more  than  they  could  help  to  give  Ireland 
soul  and  stamina,  and  to  make  her  Irish  and  what  God 
desires  her  to  be,  but  they  shrink  from  the  effort,  and 
have  no  faith  in  an  Irish  nation  doing  its  business  and 
saving  its  soul  independently  of  England.  The  finest 


BOI/TS  FROM  THE:  BLUE  289 

philosophy  of  the  Church  may  never  apply  nowadays  to 
life.  They  seem  to  go  on  the  theory  that  because  many 
of  the  older  generation  have  primitive  ideas  the  great 
ideas  of  all  ages  are  dangerous  for  Ireland." 

"  'Tis  pitiful  and  perplexing,"  declared  Fergus.  "And 
now  the  most  helpful  counsellors  and  comrades  are  not 
to  be  in  our  midst.  I  had  hoped  great  things  from  men 
like  Father  Kenealy  and  yourself.  How  long,  O  Lord, 
how  long  will  timidity  and  unreason  prevail  ?  " 

"  I  '11  make  no  attempt  to  conceal  my  intense  disap 
pointment  and  depression  over  my  failure  to  secure  the 
place  and  work  on  which  my  heart  was  set  —  not  for  my 
own  sake,  but  in  the  cause  of  the  Church  and  the  nation," 
said  Father  Murray.  "  The  blow  has  left  me  downcast 
and  physically  weak  —  the  reaction  after  my  high  hopes 
unnerved  me.  I  cannot  away  with  the  dread  that  dan 
gerous  and  stormy  days  are  before  you  in  Ireland.  The 
racial  mind  and  consciousness  are  returning,  and  there 
is  a  stirring  of  new  thought  and  energy.  The  people 
who  are  recovering  their  minds  and  taking  heart  after 
long  ignorance  and  inertia  will  want  their  rights  in  the 
social,  educational  and  intellectual  domain.  Against  all 
this  there  is  the  timid  and  largely  unsympathetic  spirit 
of  the  Church  authorities,  sensitive  about  power  and 
privilege,  and  distrustful  of  awakened  mind.  The  danger 
of  clash  and  strife  is  great,  and  should  they  come  no  man 
may  tell  the  end.  It  is  painful  to  think  of  being  remote 
and  helpless  when  one's  heart  and  one's  highest  work 
are  here  —  here  in  our  own  dear  land  of  great  ideals 
and  great  dangers.  Alas,  alas,  alas !  " 

"  Please  God,  your  disappointment  is  but  temporary," 


2QO  THE   PIvOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

said  Fergus.  "  Ireland  wants  you,  and  you  want  Ireland ; 
and  sooner  than  we  think  the  opportunity  and  the  sphere 
may  come." 

"  I  have  a  curious  feeling,"  said  Father  Murray  slowly, 
"  that  the  tide  is  gone,  and  that  my  work  lies  afar,  very, 
very  far.  But  my  heart  tells  me  that  all  will  yet  be  well 
with  Ireland;  that  the  deft  hand,  the  genial  heart,  the 
vivid  mind,  the  sane  and  reverent  soul  will  be  hers  again ; 
that  speaking  her  own  speech,  tilling  her  own  fields, 
utilizing  all  her  talents,  inspiring  all  her  children  with 
the  spirit  of  brotherhood  and  progress,  she  will  be  a 
nation  with  a  sense  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven." 

They  walked  slowly  up  and  down  by  the  river-side 
for  a  long  time,  the  talk  ranging  over  memories  and  hopes 
and  all  their  personal  and  national  problems.  When  they 
returned  to  the  house  Father  Murray  said  feelingly  that 
though  his  time  was  past  he  was  loath  to  go.  Something 
told  him  that  this  would  be  a  parting  for  many  many 
days,  and  that  they  would  be  days  to  try  all  their  souls. 

For  himself  he  wanted  a  strict  rest,  and  when  he  had 
righted  a  few  matters  in  London,  he  would  seek  it. 
Amongst  the  Gael  was  his  heart's  choice,  and  he  wanted 
to  go  to  his  native  place,  but  first  he  must  spend  a  few 
days  in  that  northern  college  where  his  teaching  career 
began,  and  where  a  few  old  friends  had  been  calling  him 
for  years ;  but  the  call  of  the  Gael  had  been  deeper. 

When  he  went  away  Fergus  could  not  rest  anywhere, 
and  he  walked  far  away  over  the  lonely  roads  amid  the 
grass  lands.  Few  might  realize  that  the  failure  of  An 
t-Athair  Mairtin's  hopes  and  mission  in  Ireland  was  a 
matter  beyond  the  ordinary,  but  Fergus  had  a  sheer  and 


BOLTS  FROM  THE:  BLUE  291 

poignant   realization   of   what   Young   Ireland   had   lost. 

After  a  restless  night  the  morning  brought  a  vague 
uneasy  sense  of  disorder  and  disaster.  He  was  out  early 
and  reached  Baile  na  Boinne  station  nearly  half  an  hour 
before  the  first  train  came  along  in  its  leisurely  way. 
The  outlook  had  greatly  changed  for  him  with  the  going 
of  Father  Kenealy  and  Father  Murray;  he  had  counted 
with  glow  and  heartsomeness  on  their  vivid  work  in 
Ireland,  and  on  their  gallant  and  cheering  spirit  of  com 
radeship.  He  was  coming  to  see  that  no  comradeship  is 
certain,  except  the  comradeship  of  the  spirits  we  can 
summon  within;  he  had  his  first  deep  lesson  in  the 
philosophy  that  true  work  must  be  done  for  its  own  sake, 
and  that  we  may  end  in  marred  lives  and  failure  unless 
we  are  prepared  in  the  last  resort  to  pursue  life's  work 
not  only  for  its  own  sake,  but  with  no  hope  of  its  fruition 
in  our  day;  and  finally  that  we  must  be  ready  full  many 
a  day  to  follow  the  Gleam  in  desert  loneliness  of  soul. 

But  Fergus  had  many  friends  yet,  and  away  under 
Killiney  Hill  Maeve  and  Elsie  gleamed  for  his  imagin 
ation  like  people  of  romance.  He  expected  as  he  worked 
through  the  day  that  one  or  other,  or  both,  of  those  fair 
young  ladies  would  ascend  to  his  editorial  cell.  But 
neither  came,  and  he  supposed  that  Bossuet  and  the  Bay, 
or  it  might  be  Wicklow,  made  a  more  particular  appeal. 

When  he  reached  home  in  the  evening  Maeve  sat 
alone.  She  had  neither  Bossuet  nor  crochet  before  her, 
and  there  was  about  her  what  he  never  noticed  hitherto  — 
an  entirely  inert  and  idle  air.  He  wondered  at  her 
coldness  and  gravity.  She  looked  up  with  a  Sphinx-like 
but  questioning  expression. 


292  TH£   PIvOUGH    AND   TH£    CROSS 

"  Just  myself,  Maeve/'  he  said.  "  Nothing  more  in 
human  than  the  tired  editor  of  Fainne  an  Lae.  You 
looked  as  if  I  were  a  ghost  or  an  embodied  heresy. 
Where  is  the  fair  and  facetious  Elsie  ?  " 

"  I  presume  that  she  's  in  Paris/'  repied  Maeve,  with 
cold  gravity.  "  At  any  rate  she  left  for  Paris  on  Satur 
day." 

"What!"  exclaimed  Fergus  in  amazement.  "You 
cannot  be  serious." 

"  I  'm  sorry  if  my  frivolous  manner  sets  you  astray/' 
replied  Maeve  in  measured  tones.  "Notwithstanding  this, 
you  may  take  the  fact  as  definite." 

"  But  why  should  she  run  away  ? "  asked  Fergus, 
bewildered  and  troubled.  "  There  was  no  need  for  her 
to  go.  And  without  a  word  to  me " 

"  Perhaps  after  your  renunciatory  mood  of  Friday 
night "  began  Maeve  frostily. 

"  Oh,  nonsense,"  interrupted  Fergus,  "  Elsie  is  wiser 
than  to  take  a  fanciful  mood,  or  a  mere  fantastic  expres 
sion  so  seriously  as  that." 

"  I  leave  it  between  you  when  it  comes  to  a  matter 
of  moods,"  said  Maeve,  with  a  resigned  air.  "  It  would 
be  folly  on  my  part  to  interfere.  I  'm  only  a  normal 
being." 

"  But  could  you  not  have  reasoned  with  Elsie  ?  Could 
you  not  have  tried  a  little  soothing,  a  little  smoothing 
over  of  things " 

"  Of  course,"  said  Maeve  wearily,  "  if  you  want  to 
attack  me  you  can.  Go  on,  and  say  I  caused  all  the 
trouble.  It 's  a  man's  way." 

"  Maeve,  you  are  preposterous,"   said  Fergus   deject- 


BOLTS  FROM  TIIK  BI.UK  293 

edly.  "  You  know  what  I  mean.  Elsie  was  wounded  in 
soul  over  things.  I  didn't  understand  it  all  till  I  thought 
it  over.  You  know  how  sensitive  and  highly-strung  she 
is,  for  all  her  playfulness.  You  could  have  reasoned  with 
her " 

"  There  you  are  again !  "  declared  Maeve.  "  Saying 
that  I  did  nothing  to  induce  her  to  stay.  Your  next 
charge  will  be  that  I  turned  her  out  of  the  house." 

"  Maeve/'  said  Fergus  helplessly,  "  I  '11  say  nothing 
if  you  '11  just  tell  me  the  story  in  your  own  way.  Please 
begin  at  the  beginning." 

"  The  beginning  was  in  Meath,"  replied  Maeve.  "  The 
beginning  was  the  scene  that  led  to  Elsie's  unfortunate 
and  amazing  article.  Once  one  member  of  the  Church, 
like  Father  Finnegan,  is  interfered  with,  there  's  no  end 
to  the  troublous  consequences  set  in  train.  Dramatic 
justice  is  worked  out  through  the  troubled  minds  of  those 
very  people  who  interfere  with  the  Church  through  its 
ministers." 

"  You  conveniently  ignore  the  fact  that  Father  Finnegan 
was  the  originator  of  the  whole  trouble,"  retorted  Fergus. 
"  And  the  other  assumptions  are  grotesque.  Elsie  was 
right  in  what  she  said  from  first  to  last,  and  she  knows 
it,  and  you  know  it,  Maeve.  If  you  go  off  on  these  foolish 
and  extravagant  tracks  I  '11  get  impatient." 

"  Don't,  please,"  said  Maeve.  "  Considering  the  state 
of  anger  and  impatience  in  which  you  have  been  since 
you  came  in,  I  tremble  to  think  what  you  VI  be  if  you 
grew  what  you  call  '  impatient.'  ' 

Fergus  thought  he  had  high  cause  for  anger,  though 
he  had  not  been  angry. 


294  TH£    PlyOUGH    AND   TH£    CROSS 

The  dialog  went  on  in  much  the  same  style  during 
tea-time,  and  when  it  was  over  Fergus  retired  to  his 
study.  Maeve  crossed  her  hands  at  the  back  of  her  head 
and  mused  in  this  wise : 

"  'Twas  beastly  to  seem  so  unsympathetic  —  beastly, 
and  very  hard  to  keep  up.  But  it  was  the  only  way. 
'Twill  be  a  sort  of  counter-irritant.  If  I  told  him  simply 
and  straight  of  Elsie's  gloom  it  would  be  much  worse. 
Happily,  he  won't  take  to  drink  —  his  dissipation  will  be 
voluminous  correspondence  to  Paris.  Poor  Elsie !  What 
a  sensitive  spirit  she  has !  Little  Fergus  dreams  how 
much  I  'd  give  to  have  her  back.  And  I'm  sure  she  's 
so  disgusted  with  herself  by  now  for  her  hasty  flight  that 
she  's  simply  unapproachable.  I  won't  write  to  her  for 
at  least  two  months  —  I  don't  want  to  receive  a  postcard 
that  would  snap  the  nose  off  me.  Oh  dear,  dear!  the 
tragi-comedy  we  create  for  our  poor  selves,  as  if  the 
world  were  not  full  of  it.  If  /  had  so  preposterous  a 
misadventure  as  to  be  in  love  with  anybody,  there  would 
be  one  relieving  element  in  the  strange  affair  —  I  'd  be 
rational  about  it  and  wouldn't  assume  for  a  moment  that 
'twas  something  unique  in  the  universe.  I  wonder  has 
Fergus  started  his  Paris  letter.  'Twill  be  a  sort  of 
Apologia  Pro  Vita  Sua.  Perhaps,  after  all,  I  'd  better 
write  to  Elsie  —  a  nice,  cousinly,  jocose  letter.  '  As  I 
write,  the  abandoned,  heart-wounded  hero  in  his  lair 
curses  fate,  scatters  ink  like  April  rain,  and  makes  the 
place  filthy  with  tobacco  smoke.'  She  '11  be  as  cross  as 
two  sticks,  but  'twill  break  the  strain.  Too  much  tragedy 
is  tiresome  —  almost  worse  than  the  flippancy  of  curates." 


CHAPTER  XXX 
O'HAGAN  MAKES  UP  HIS  MIND 


ISS  Maeve  O'Hagan  for  once  had 
misjudged  the  situation.  When 
Fergus  went  to  his  study  he  did 
not  sit  down  to  write  a  letter  to 
Elsie  in  Paris.  To  be  sure  he 
felt  like  doing  so  but  there  were 
elements  in  the  problem  and  in 
himself  that  he  wanted  to  think 
through  and  over  and  under  ;  and 
he  did  so  to  a  fine  accompaniment 
of  tobacco  smoke  —  Maeve  was 

right  about  the  tobacco  smoke.  He  had  sustained  a  blow  ; 
but,  unlike  a  petty  annoyance,  a  good^  stinging  blow 
brought  him  to  himself. 

He  started  with  the  axiom  that  Elsie  was  right  in 
and  to  her  own  mind.  Painful  as  her  flight  was  to  him 
and  on  the  face  of  it  ill-judged  and  cruel,  the  justification 
must  have  been  vivid  to  her  own  mind,  or  she  would  not 
have  gone;  and  this  being  so,  neither  he  nor  anybody 
else  had  the  least  right  to  upbraid  her  or  even  question 
her  decision.  At  the  same  time  his  heart  questioned  it, 


296  THE   PIvOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

and  the  feeling  of  blankness  and  loneliness  was  intoler 
able. 

Elsie  must  have  suffered  intensely  of  late,  must  be 
suffering  intensely  now.  In  the  singular  tangle  of  nerves 
and  circumstances  she  had  been  misunderstood  and  set 
out  of  tune;  being  the  most  sensitive  of  them  all  she 
had  felt  and  endured  the  most.  The  question  was : 
How  could  the  wrong  and  the  irony  best  be  righted  ? 

In  the  tense  and  concentrated  condition  of  his  mind 
the  fit  solution  did  not  demand  much  seeking.  The 
ancient,  much-debated,  but  apparently  rather  popular 
one  of  marriage  suggested  itself.  The  more  he  thought 
over  it  in  the  new  circumstances  the  more  it  appealed 
to  him,  and  raised  his  mind  and  spirits.  Life  with  Elsie 
in  the  Boyne  Valley  and  elsewhere  would  be  a  unique 
experience,  and  as  for  the  work  in  Dublin 

He  paused.  Was  the  work  of  a  newspaper  his  fit 
work  at  all,  except  by  fits  and  starts?  If  it  were  all 
writing  it  were  good  and  congenial,  but  the  original 
writing  was  but  a  fraction  of  the  labor,  and  the  other 
fractions  had  a  harassing  and  dissipating  effect  upon 
the  mind.  Taking  the  large  view  they  really  marred 
and  defeated  his  purpose  in  Ireland.  They  broke  intel 
lectual  coherence  and  spoiled  artistic  expression.  The 
ideas  he  wanted  to  drive  home  could  be  expressed  a 
thousand  times  better  in  books,  with  immeasurably 
more  concentration  and  effect.  One  book  written  with 
Elsie  in  the  Boyne  Valley,  or  some  other  haunt  of  labor 
and  peace,  would  be  worth  the  newspaper  work  of  a 
life-time. 

He  looked  through  a  couple  of  his  own  books  of  which 


O'HACAN  MAKES  UP  HIS  MIND          297 

he  had  kept  copies.  One  was  in  Irish,  and  was  a  revel  of 
the  imagination  in  fairy  glens,  in  under-world  magical 
palaces,  and  among  flowers  and  stars.  The  other  was 
a  novel,  published  long  since  pseudonymously.  It  re 
vealed  his  own  early  neighbors  in  toil  and  joy,  in  struggle 
and  hope,  in  suffering  and  faith;  on  their  heather  and 
their  hillsides,  as  near  to  the  next  world  as  to  this.  It 
was  the  natal  nook  of  many  like  Sean  O'Carroll  and 
Maire.  Glancing  over  the  pages,  which  he  had  not  re 
read  for  years,  he  came  to  phases  and  flashes  of  a  racy, 
delicate  life  —  for  the  Irish  rural  life  of  his  youth  had 
singular  and  subtle  delicacy,  as  well  as  wizardry  —  which 
phases  and  flashes  he  had  all  but  forgotten,  and  he  re 
called  Father  Kenealy's  caution  in  the  Boyne  Valley. 
Then  he  sought  and  found  a  purely  literary  novel,  pub 
lished  serially  and  also  pseudonymously  in  his  years 
abroad.  It  brought  back  a  flood  of  memories,  but  it 
also  showed  him,  like  the  others,  that  the  newspaper 
realm  was,  for  him  at  any  rate,  an  artistic  mistake. 

Had  he  not  said  all  he  wanted  to  say  in  Fainne  an  Laef 
With  the  loss  of  Mr.  Milligan,  the  exile  of  Father 
Kenealy,  the  hope  deferred  of  Father  Murray,  the  chilli 
ness  of  Maynooth,  a  change  in  the  order  had  come,  a 
time  to  take  one's  bearings.  There  were  friends  not  a 
few  who  would  be  glad  to  have  charge  of  Fainne  an  Lae, 
and  who  would  not  mind,  or  would  not  feel,  the  inartistic 
distractions.  He  himself  could  work  in  the  literary 
realm  that  was  natural  to  him.  He  would  start  forth 
with  to  make  arrangements  for  the  change.  He  hoped 
the  transition  would  be  brief. 

He  wrote  to  Elsie  in  affectionate  and  buoyant  style, 


2Q8  THE   PLOUGH    AND   THE}    CROSS 

for  the  conclusion  he  had  come  to  had  relieved  his  heart 
and  mind.  Of  course  she  would  return  without  delay; 
there  was  no  purpose  now  in  remaining  in  Paris.  "  In 
the  joyous  future,"  he  said,  "we  shall  doubtless  laugh 
often  over  your  famous  mid-holiday  flight;  but  it  was 
a  crushing  sensation  this  evening." 

"  Do  not  think,"  he  also  said,  "  that  I  have  changed 
my  views  about  our  affectionate  and  unworldly  relation 
ship.  It  is  ideal,,  and  fascinating,  and  suggestive  of 
fairyland.  My  one  fear  about  marriage  has  always  been 
that  it  might  possibly  —  for  human  personalities  are  im 
perfect —  do  something  to  take  even  a  little  off  the 
delicate  bloom  and  charm  of  our  mental  and  spiritual 
idyll;  and  that  would  be  a  disaster.  But  your  drastic 
step  has  brought  poignant  pangs,  and  I  have  to  recognize, 
and  with  terrible  keenness,  that  our  hearts  and  natures 
belong  to  this  world  as  well  as  to  fairyland  and  immortal 
spheres." 

When  he  went  down  stairs  Maeve  and  Arthur  O'Mara 
were  quietly  playing  chess.  Maeve  looked  up  with  a 
surprised  expression  which  meant :  "  Really  I  thought 
you  would  be  shedding  ink  and  tears  for  at  least  another 
hour."  She  was  still  more  astonished  when  she  noticed 
the  glow  in  his  eyes. 

"  Hello,  -Fergus,"  said  Arthur.  "  That  was  a  rather 
wild  trick  of  Elsie  O'Kennedy's,  was  it  not?  Elsie  is 
a  cat,"  he  continued,  as  he  made  a  move  on  the  board. 
"  Plays  very  gaily,  but  has  claws.  We  had  a  good  deal 
of  fun  in  Wicklow,  and  it  made  Maeve  rather  jealous, 
though  she  knows  that  I  'm  twice  as  fond  of  her." 


O'HAGAN  MARKS  UP  HIS  MIND          299 

"  Check ! "  said  Maeve,  looking  with  cold  glee  at 
Arthur's  king. 

"  Confound  that  bishop  of  yours,"  cried  Arthur.  "  I 
quite  overlooked  him." 

"  Some  people  make  a  similar  mistake  in  life,  and  the 
consequences  are  more  striking  than  in  chess,"  said  Maeve 
drily. 

"  For  my  part  I  imagine  that  I  'm  done  with  bishops," 
said  Fergus,  as  he  moved  away.  "  I  '11  be  back  quickly 
—  I  'm  just  going  to  post  a  letter." 

"  Of  course  you  are,"  said  Maeve  sweetly.  "  But 
don't  be  too  sure  about  the  bishops." 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

THE:  BISHOP  OF  DUN  NA  RIOGH 

|  ILL  you  tell  Mr.  O'Hagan  that  the 
Bishop  of  Dun  na  Riogh  would 
like  to  see  him?  " 

The  alert  young  man  in  the 
commercial  office  of  Fainne  an 
Lac  was  considerably  surprised. 
Distinguished  and  interesting  visit 
ors  there  had  been  during  the 
year,  but  never  till  now  a  bishop. 
"Oh,  pray,  don't  be  alarmed," 
said  his  lordship,  smiling,  "  I  'm 
not  a  Castle  bishop." 

The  young  man  recovered  his  composure  and  his 
spirits,  and  made  a  movement  to  go  upstairs.  But  he 
suddenly  thought  it  would  not  be  proper  to  keep  a  bishop 
waiting,  so  he  said  hurriedly: 

"Will  your  lordship  please  come  this  way?" 
His  lordship  did  so,  and  immediately  the  young  man 
grew  embarrassed  again,  for  he  knew  that  Fergus  was 
playing  the  fiddle,  and  wondered  incidentally  why  he  had 
resumed  that  uneditorial  habit.  Fergus  himself  had 
been  wondering  if  it  were  possible  to  compose  a  Farewell 


I 

B 


THE   BISHOP    OF    DUN    NA    RIOGH  303 

to  Journalism.  It  was  at  least  as  tantalizing  as  a  sweet 
heart,  but  the  prospect  of  separation  did  not  seem  to 
conduce  to  either  exhaltation  or  pathos,  so  the  celebration 
by  melody  seemed  remote.  He  was  now  in  the  midst 
of  a  favorite  folk-tune,  and  what  the  young  man  felt 
was  that  announcing  a  bishop  to  an  editor  engaged  in  play 
ing  the  fiddle  was  an  incongruous  business,  and  might  be 
mutually  embarrassing. 

In  point  of  fact  there  was  no  occasion  for  his  fears. 
Fergus  looked  a  little  surprised,  but  considerably  pleased 
when  the  bishop  was  announced,  and  his  lordship  looked 
as  if  he  thought  that  fiddle-playing  was  a  natural  part 
of  the  day's  work  of  editors. 

"  I  feel  every  moment  on  the  point  of  addressing  your 
lordship  as  '  Father,'  "  said  Fergus,  when  the  bishop  was 
seated.  "  I  have  not  had  the  good  fortune  to  see  you 
since  I  first  left  home,  and  then " 

"  And  then  I  was  a  humble,  hard-working,  somewhat 
unconventional  P.  P.  in  your  native  parish,"  said  his 
lordship,  "  and  had  no  idea  that  a  bishopric  was  in  store 
for  me.  Neither  had  most  other  people.  But  there  are 
occasional  surprises  even  in  Church  affairs.  I  'd  as  lief 
be  the  humble  parish  priest  still.  Several  things  about 
the  episcopacy  are  not  ideal.  But  I  must  not  say  such 
things  to  " —  his  lordship's  eyes  twinkled  — "  to  a  vigilant 
enemy  of  the  Church  like  you." 

"  I  don't  know  if  bishops  read  Irish  papers,"  said 
Fergus,  "  but  assuming  that  your  lordship  reads  Fainne 
an  Lae,  did  you  ever  see  a  line  in  it  directed  against  the 
Church  as  distinguished  from  individual  Churchmen  who 
happen  to  obstruct  or  retard  national  development  ?  " 


304  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

"  Of  course  I  did  not/'  said  the  bishop,  "  and  sorry 
I  'd  be  if  I  did ;  and  much  I  'd  blame  myself  if  I  did,  for 
it  would  show  that  I,  your  old  parish  priest,  had  not  done 
my  duty  to  you  in  your  youth.  I  have  seen  the  result  of 
my  own  old  sermons  in  certain  of  your  articles.  All  the 
same  you  are  on  the  wrong  track  in  Ireland.  You  want, 
for  one  thing,  intellectuality  in  the  Church,  and  you  will 
not  get  it.  For  hundreds  of  years  our  religion  in  Ireland 
has  been  emotional,  and  in  a  measure  sentimental.  So  it 
will  remain,  as  far  as  human  eyes  can  see.  Then,  and 
perhaps  more  serious  still,  you  advocate  a  freedom  for 
the  laity  which  the  laity  do  not  want,  and  the  clergy  do 
not  like.  Is  it  worth  your  while  to  go  against  the  tide? 
Have  you  not  enough  to  occupy  your  energy  without 
troubling  about  the  relations  of  the  priests  and  the  people  ? 
What  was  good  enough  for  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
the  nineteenth,  is  sufficient  for  the  twentieth.  I  hear  at 
all  our  diocesan  conferences  that  everybody  is  satisfied 
with  the  status  quo." 

"  With  the  somewhat  significant  exceptions  of  the  laity, 
who  are  outside,  and  the  young  progressive  priests  who 
recognize  the  new  age,"  said  Fergus.  "  No  serious  head 
way  is  possible  in  Ireland  until  there  is  a  clear  under 
standing  about  the  relations,  and  the  respective  rights,  of 
Churchmen  and  laity.  Our  articles  on  these  issues  — 
by  clerics  as  well  as  laics  —  have  been  but  a  comparatively 
small  part  of  the  work  of  the  paper,  but  they  have  done 
something  to  clear  the  air." 

"  That  is  just  the  difficulty,"  the  bishop  declared. 
"  Most  of  us  do  not  want  discussion ;  we  do  not  desire 
the  air  to  be  cleared.  We  want  the  old,  easy  order  to 


THE)   BISHOP    OF    DUN    NA    RIOGH  305 

continue — we  the  bishops,  with  our  clergy,  ruling  Ireland, 
the  people  unquestioning  and  submissive  at  home,  or  emi 
grating  to  spread  the  faith  abroad.  I  can  tell  you  that 
the  British  Government  wants  the  status  quo  too;  and 
the  Vatican,  which  for  the  sake  of  the  Church  all  round 
the  Empire  desires  to  conciliate  the  British  Government, 
wants  it  also.  If  the  bishops  are  unable  to  lead  and 
govern  the  people,  the  plans  of  both  Government  and 
Vatican  are  upset." 

"  But  need  the  bishops  be  so  insistently  on  the  side  of 
the  British  Government?"  asked  Fergus.  "  Of  course 
no  actual  or  known  opponent  of  the  British  connexion  is 
made  a  bishop  by  Rome,  but  even  so,  could  not  all  think 
for  Ireland  and  help  her  forward  in  many  ways?  Your 
lordship  often  said  you  were  proud  to  be  a  man  of  the 
people,  so  your  view  on  this  matter,  which  is  coming  to 
agitate  the  mind  of  young  Ireland  very  much,  should  be 
particularly  interesting." 

"  My  friend,  these  big  questions  of  policy  are  not  so 
easily  settled  as  you  think.  One  bishop  and  one  editor 
cannot  settle  them  at  all  events.  You  put  Ireland  first, 
and  as  for  me  I  do  not  leave  Ireland  entirely  out  of  sight; 
but  most  of  my  brethren  have  no  country.  The  Church 
thinks  for  souls,  not  nationalities.  The  British  Empire 
is  a  much  larger  field  of  and  for  souls  than  Ireland,  you 
know." 

"And  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  earthly  days  of  the 
Founder  of  Christianity  was  bigger  than  Palestine,"  said 
Fergus,  "  yet  our  Lord  kept  to  his  own  modest  land, 
preaching,  it  is  generally  believed,  in  a  local  dialect,  and 
never  using  the  '  Imperial '  language." 


306  THE   PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

His  lordship  smiled.  "  Ah,  but  he  ordained  that  His 
disciples  should  go  and  teach  all  nations." 

"  True,  your  lordship,  but  He  never  said  that  any  of 
them  should  necessarily  renounce  their  own  nationality, 
or  interfere  with  the  rights  of  States  and  peoples.  '  Ren 
der  to  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's.'  '  My  King 
dom  is  not  of  this  world.'  And  is  there  any  ordinance 
to  the  effect  that  those  who  in  modern  times  must  neces 
sarily  stay  to  preach  and  teach  at  home  should  not  be  in 
sympathy  with  the  home  nation?  In  other  words,  is 
there  any  reason  known  to  your  lordship  why  the  bishops 
should  not  be  Irish  in  feeling?  And  may  I  ask  your 
lordship  a  bigger  question  still  ?  Is  there  any  reason  why 
we  should  not  have  broad-minded,  democratic,  and  intel 
lectual  Churchmen  in  Ireland?  —  men  who  would  show 
that  the  Church,  so  far  from  being  afraid  of  science, 
culture,  democracy,  and  progress,  appreciates  them  and 
encourages  them,  and  has  a  mission  and  a  spirit  im 
measurably  greater  than  them  all?  The  anti-social  and 
unintellectual  spirit  of  so  many  Churchmen  in  Ireland 
often  appears  to  me  to  argue  a  strange  want  of  faith." 

"  Really,"  replied  his  lordship,  "  you  are  on  a  par  with 
certain  parties  in  Maynooth.  If  the  laity  generally  had 
such  definite  and  decided  ideas  as  you  have  the  lives  of 
bishops  would  be  strenuous.  I  am  not  saying  that  under 
other  conditions  it  would  not  be  better  for  Church  and 
State.  But  you  and  your  friends  are  ahead  of  your  time, 
.and  ye  have  the  same  '  weakness  '  for  ideas  that  some 
of  our  poorer  countrymen  have  for  drink.  My  old  friend 
Aubrey  de  Vere  used  to  say  that  poetry  refuses  to  take 
up  more  philosophy  than  it  can  hold  in  solution.  Simi- 


THE   BISHOP    OF    DUN    NA    RIOGH  307 

larly  with  average  men  and  average  life.  A  few  ideas 
are  all  very  well  if  held  in  solution  in  the  mental  and 
social  economy;  but  if  we  were  all  like  you  and  the 
Maynooth  '  forwards '  Ireland  would  disappear  in  an 
intellectual  explosion.  You  don't  know  the  country  we 
have  to  contend  with,  and  I  think  I  understand  the 
reason.  You  were  brought  up  in  a  district  that  was  close 
to  the  Gael,  and  that  still  in  your  youth  preserved  a 
life  that  had  been  the  growth  of  ages.  You  left  it  while 
still  young,  though  it  had  grown  into  your  heart  and 
being,  and  it  has  lived  in  and  with  you  since,  wherever 
you  went  in  the  world,  and  you  have  brought  it  back  in 
your  heart  and  memory  to  your  new  work  and  your  new 
day.  But  in  the  old  place  itself  —  and  it  is  typical  of 
hundreds  —  it  is  dead  and  gone :  dead  as  '  Knocknagow  ' ; 
and  a  dreary,  decaying  apology  for  life  has  largely  taken 
its  place.  Alas,  the  emigrant  ships  have  left  us,  who 
knew  another  order,  very  lonely  in  the  South.  The  great 
consolation  is  that  our  good  people  have  gone  to  spread 
the  faith  abroad." 

"  Your  lordship  amazes  me,"  interjected  Fergus.  "  You 
know  how  simple  and  untrained  our  poor  emigrants  are 
as  a  rule.  You  know,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  modern 
world  which  counts  is  neither  simple  nor  untrained.  The 
idea  that  our  emigrants  could  affect  its  conception  of  life 
is  to  me  one  of  the  wildest  illusions  in  history.  It  seems 
to  me  awful  that  our  bishops  and  clergy  should  look 
calmly  on  the  breaking  and  scattering  of  the  Irish  nation 
for  the  sake  of  an  illusion." 

"  God  must  have  willed  that  our  nation  should  break 
and  scatter,"  said  the  bishop,  "  or  it  would  not  happen. 


308  TH£  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

And  God  would  not  will  such  a  national  tragedy  except 
for  a  great  purpose.  Who  are  we  that  we  should  try  to 
interfere  with  the  purpose  ?  " 

"  Surely  it  is  good  and  even  divine  to  use  our  brains," 
replied  Fergus.  "And  if,  using  our  brains,  we  can  see 
that  the  main  cause  of  the  Irish  exodus  is  economic,  and 
means  the  ultimate  ruin  of  our  historic  nation,  the  passing 
of  a  distinctive  shrine  and  treasury  of  humanity,  surely 
then  it  is  senseless  to  look  calmly  on  the  ruin  and  declare 
it  is  fulfilling  a  divine  purpose.  But  assuming  for  a 
moment  that  the  mission  of  Ireland  is  not  to  do  her  own 
business  truly  and  nobly,  but  to  undertake  the  big  and 
boastful  task  of  looking  after  the  world's,  why  not  edu 
cate  the  people  before  they  go?  At  present  our  people 
are  the  worst  educated  in  Europe,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  the  Italians." 

"  There  is  education  and  education,"  replied  his  lord 
ship.  "  If  education  were  too  Irish  too  many  of  the 
people  would  stay  at  home,  surrendering  for  a  narrow 
destiny  the  great  missionary  one  before  the  race.  And 
overmuch  culture  would  spoil  the  missionary  spirit  of 
those  going  abroad  —  it  would  destroy  their  passionate 
and  simple  spiritual  fervor  on  which  we  count  so  largely. 
Besides,  deep  education  for  the  masses  in  any  land  is 
dangerous.  As  soon  as  you  really  educate  the  masses  you 
must  begin  to  rearrange  the  social  order.  Educated 
young  men  won't  be  satisfied  with  being  farm  drudges 
or  stone-breakers ;  they  will  want  as  good  and  as  honored 
a  place  in  the  social  economy  as  others.  Education  for 
the  masses  in  short  means  some  form  of  socialism." 

"And    need    we    shrink    from    that?"    asked    Fergus. 


THE    BISHOP    01?    DUN    NA    RIOGrf  309 

"  Ethically,  is  not  essential  socialism  akin  to  Christianity? 
I  think,  however,  that  nationalization  of  certain  indus 
tries,  municipalization  of  others,  and  co-operation  every 
where  we  can  possibly  apply  it,  would  do  to  go  on  with, 
more  especially  if  we  applied  Christianity  to  everyday  life. 
Anyhow  is  it  not  our  duty  and  interest  to  train,  educate, 
and  exalt  mind,  assured  that  all  will  be  well  ?  I  have  not 
the  least  doubt  that  thinking  and  educated  humanity  will 
be  equal  to  its  problems  and  its  responsibilities." 

"Alas,  I  am  an  old  man,  and  the  thought  of  these 
revolutions  appals  me,"  said  the  bishop.  "Anyway, 
vain  to  interfere  with  fate  and  destiny,  and  Irish  dt. 
is  to  suffer  in  this  world  and  spread  the  faith.  The  drean 
ers  of  young  Ireland,  finding  they  cannot  fight  fate  and 
move  mountains,  will  grow  sensible  like  the  rest  of  us. 
You  had  better  start  slowing  down  yourself.  You  must 
accept  the  status  quo.  You  may  discourse  on  tillage,  the 
revival  of  the  kilt,  co-operative  creameries,  simplified 
spelling  of  the  Irish  language,  and  sundry  such  fruitful 
and  interesting  themes.  But  you  must  not  criticise  any 
phase  or  point  of  ecclesiastical  policy  in  Ireland.  You 
must  not  recommend  the  study  of  the  philosophic  basis 
of  Catholicism,  nor  advocate  the  application  of  practical 
Christianity  in  everyday  Irish  life :  your  own  good  and 
wise  bishops  will  see  to  these  great  things.  You  must 
leave  the  political  aspect  of  the  Hierarchy  alone.  You 
must  rigidly  avoid  all  suggestions  tending  towards  popu 
lar  control  of  education,  and  where  the  clergy  oppose  the 
establishment  of  free  libraries  for  the  people  you  must 
assume  that  they  have  reasons  entirely  convincing  to 
themselves." 


3IO  THE   PLOUGH    AND  THE    CROSS 

"  Your  lordship  is  delightful,"  said  Fergus.  "  You 
bring,  if  I  may  say  so,  a  very  pleasant  spirit  of  irony  to 
bear  on  the  extreme  clerical  position." 

"  You  foolish  young  man !  "  said  the  bishop,  "  I  am 
quite  serious.' 

"  Does  your  lordship  really  mean  that  you  desire 
to  prevent  a  national  newspaper  from  commenting  on 
national  questions !  "  Fergus  asked  in  surprise. 

"  Episcopal  and  clerical  questions/'  said  his  lordship. 

"  But  episcopal  and  clerical  questions  that  directly 
affect  the  nation,  and  are  not  in  the  sphere  of  the 
bishops  and  clergy  as  such." 

"It  is  the  tradition  in  Ireland,"  replied  the  bishop. 
"  There  are  national  and  social  questions  which  the 
bishops  and  clergy  here  have  always  decided,  and  we 
cannot  allow  the  laity  to  have  any  say  in  them  now  or 
in  future." 

"  I  decline,  with  all  due  respect,  to  recognize  any  such 
law,  rule,  or  tradition,"  said  Fergus.  "  I  absolutely 
refuse  to  bind  myself,  or  suppress  or  withhold  legitimate 
criticism  or  comment  on  any  public  or  national  question 
whatsoever." 

"  I  admire  your  pluck,"  his  lordship  said,  "  but  'tis 
absolutely  quixotic.  Yourself  and  your  paper  will  inevit 
ably  be  crushed.  Do  you  know  where  you  are  and  what 
you  are  doing?  Can  you  calmly  contemplate  the  thought 
of  the  utter  ruin  of  your  career  in  your  native  land?  If 
you  resist  the  episcopal  will  you  must  take  the  conse 
quences." 

"  Willingly,"  replied  Fergus. 

"  Somehow,  I  had  the  fear  that  you  would  not  listen  to 


THE}    BISHOP    OF    DUN    NA    RIOGH  311 

reason,  though  as  one  who  was  to  some  extent  responsible 
for  your  spiritual  upbringing  I  felt  it  my  duty  to  try,  and 
I  said  I  would  do  my  best.  My  brethren  generally  want 
to  get  these  troubles  settled  as  quietly  as  possible.  I  see 
that  in  your  case  they  must  take  their  own  measures." 

"  Then  your  lordship  is  not  speaking  for  yourself 
alone!  Do  I  understand  you  to  mean  that  the  bishops 
seriously  take  it  upon  themselves  to  decide  the  policy 
of  a  national  journal  ?  " 

His  lordship  smiled  blandly  as  he  replied : 

"Ah,  my  friend,  you  have  been  living  a  long  time 
in  free  countries  and  have  forgotten  some  things  about 
Ireland.  Of  course  we  bishops  decide  the  policy  of 
national  journals.  We  can  generally  do  it  in  a  quiet  way ; 
it  is  seldom  necessary  to  hit  an  editor  very  hard ;  but 
editors  who  print  such  bold  and  cruelly  true  articles  as 
'  The  Clergy  Against  Nature  '  require  special  handling. 
I  cannot  say  what  will  happen  when  I  go  back  to  the 
meeting  of  the  Standing  Committee." 

"  Does  the  Standing  Committee  of  the  Bishops  meet 
today  ?  "  asked  Fergus. 

"  It  has  been  sitting  at  University  College  for  some 
time.  I  had  the  consideration  of  your  case  postponed 
pending  the  result  of  my  talk  with  you.  His  Eminence 
thought  that  one  of  his  own  famous  missives  would  be 
the  best  means  of  frightening  you,  and  his  Grace  of  the 
West  thought  it  infra  dig.  for  a  bishop  to  call  on  an  edi 
tor,  but  his  Grace  nearer  home  said  his  visits  to  the  offices 
of  the  daily  papers  invariably  occasioned  a  pleasing  mix 
ture  of  politeness  and  awe,  and  he  felt  that  a  weekly 
would  be  still  more  amenable  to  reason.  Anyhow,  I 


312  THJC    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

declared  that  I  'd  please  myself.  We  have  had  a  pleasant 
chat,  but  unfortunately  I  have  failed  in  my  main  object. 
Are  you  really  determined  to  be  crushed  ?  " 

"  No,  your  lordship,"  replied  Fergus.  "  I  am  going 
Ic  congnamh  DC*  to  show  the  bishops  that  the  Irish 
world  has  changed." 

"  They  will  be  the  last  men  in  Ireland  to  be  convinced 
on  that  point,"  said  his  lordship,  as  he  rose  to  go.  "  Well, 
you  have  the  spirit  of  the  old  place  and  the  old  times. 
'Tis  almost  a  pity  to  crush  you.  But  I  fear  it  must  be 
done.  You  stand  in  the  way  of  episcopal  and  British 
and  Vatican  policy  in  Ireland.  And  you  want  thought 
where  your  bishops,  who  are  wiser  than  you,  declare 
there  shall  be  no  thought.  And  you  ask  questions  upon 
issues  that  these  same  good  bishops  declare  have  been 
settled  for  all  time." 

When  his  lordship  had  gone  Fergus  reviewed  sundry 
facts  of  late  days  from  a  new  standpoint.  He  saw  how 
real  had  been  poor  Mr.  Milligan's  fears,  and  that  the 
pressure  on  Maynooth,  the  banishment  of  Father  Ken- 
ealy,  and  the  failure  of  Father  Murray  to  obtain  in 
Ireland  the  post  and  the  work  after  his  own  heart,  were 
outcomes  of  the  same  deliberate  and  determined  episcopal 
policy. 
*With  God's  help. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

MR.   MORT1MUR  AND  THE}  PIT  —  MAYNOOTH   AT  THE 
CROSS-ROADS 


'FTER  a  few  days,  when  he  heard 
nothing  from  the  bishops,  Fergus 
began  to  wonder  if  serene  counsels 
had  prevailed,  or  if  the  Bishop  of 
Dun  na  Riogh,  who  always  had  a 
quiet  sense  of  humor,  had  indulged 
in  genial  exaggeration.  If  their 
lordships  had  decided  to  leave  well 
enough  alone,  and  made  no  move,  he 
could  carry  out  his  plan  of  retiring 
from  the  paper  to  the  purely  literary  fold.  If  they 
threatened  or  condemned  he  would  stay  at  his  post  and 
see  the  issue  out.  For  the  moment  the  attitude  of  their 
lordships  gave  him  far  less  concern  that  did  the  attitude 
of  Elsie.  She  had  not  answered  any  of  his  letters  or 
recognized  the  fact  of  his  existence  in  any  way,  and  this 
made  a  momentous  difference  in  his  life.  Maeve  herself 
was  cloudy  and  uncommunicative. 

One  evening  at  this  perplexing  and  indecisive  stage, 
just  as  he  left  the  office  he  encountered  Mr.  Geoffrey 
Mortimer  in  the  narrow  street.  Fergus  was  so  deep  in 


314  THE   PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

thought  that  although  the  great  man's  voice  brought  him 
back  to  actuality  he  entirely  missed  the  drift  of  his 
carefully  prepared  opening  epigram,  on  which  others 
depended,  and  the  result  was  the  partial  disorganization 
of  the  conversation  for  a  couple  of  minutes. 

"  You  are  making  a  brave  effort  to  brazen  out  the 
theory  that  a  thinking  mind  can  thrive  in  Ireland,"  said 
Geoffrey.  "  Your  obstinacy  is  worthy  of  a  better  cause. 
Excuse  the  trite  remark  —  that  sort  of  thing  slips  on  one 
in  Dublin,  the  capital  of  triteness.  I  know,  when  I  reflect, 
that  no  good  or  great  cause  is  served  by  obstinacy.  It  is 
the  propagandists'  counterfeit  for  heroism ;  if  you  allow 
it  to  grow  upon  you  it  will  be  your  undoing  as  an  artist. 
I  suppose,  however,  that  you  have  forgotten  art  by  this 
time.  You  look  as  if  you  had  not  an  idea  left." 

"  I  happen  to  have  a  rather  wild  one  at  present," 
replied  Fergus.  "  It  is  to  ask  you  to  come  home  with 
me  to  tea.  Elementary  you  may  say  —  but  wait.  Our 
Maynooth  friend,  Father  O'Muinneog,  happens  to  be  in 
town  today,  and  he  will  be  there.  My  sister  is  probably 
entertaining  him  by  this  time.  Pitting  you  against  a 
Maynooth  professor  and  a  highly  religious-minded  young 
lady  rather  appeals  to  me  in  my  present  mood.  But  you 
would  be  out  of  your  element,  I  suppose." 

"  My  dear  O'Hagan,"  said  Geoffrey,  "  you  are  becom 
ing  as  thoughtless  and  intolerant  as  the  majority  of  the 
anglicized  Dubliners  themselves.  In  the  first  place  you 
forget  what  I  told  you  in  my  letter  —  that  my  hurried 
visit  is  solely  in  my  personal  capacity.  My  artistic  in 
dividuality  for  ever  remains  out  of  Ireland.  And  you 
ought  to  know  that  Geoffrey  Mortimer,  the  middle-aged 


MR.    MORTIMER  AND  THE  PIT  31$ 

gentleman  and  private  citizen,  is  almost  tedious  in  his 
decorum  and  well-nigh  intolerable  in  his  virtue.  I  shall 
be  delighted  to  go." 

The  incredible  record  that  she  never  dropped  china  had 
been  claimed  for  Maeve.  She  very  nearly  dropped  a  whole 
trayful  when  Geoffrey  Mortimer's  name  was  mentioned 
by  Fergus,  but  she  bowed  with  surprising  calm,  and  her 
smile  was  hospitality  itself.  The  professor's  expression 
was  inscrutable. 

"  You  must  be  sorry,  Father,  to  be  away  even  for  a  day 
from  Maynooth,"  said  Geoffrey,  as  they  sat  down  to  tea. 
"  Had  I  the  priceless  privilege  of  being  a  professor  in 
Maynooth,  instead  of  as  I  am  —  a  poor  worm  creeping 
after  the  inaccessible  and  the  inexpressible  in  art  —  I  'd 
never  have  the  courage  to  come  out  into  the  common, 
sinful  world.  I  'd  have  the  same  horror  of  it  that  folk 
in  the  Middle  Ages  had  of  mountains." 

Maeve  opened  her  eyes  as  wide  as  politeness  would 
allow.  Father  O'Muinneog,  who  was  always  interested 
in  new  ideas  and  fancies,  or  a  fresh  expression  of  old 
ones,  smiled  encouragingly. 

"  Mind  in  Maynooth  has  its  own  burdens,"  said  Fergus. 
"  There  is  an  episcopal  shadow  on  the  landscape  just 
now." 

"  You  must  not  talk  that  way,  my  dear  O'Hagan,"  said 
Geoffrey  deprecatingly.  "  It  betrays  an  obsession  by 
externals,  a  mind  vexed  by  incidentals.  Mine  is  a  mere 
lay  view,  of  course,  but  my  great  regret  is  that  the  bishops 
do  not  loom  more  largely  in  our  Irish  affairs.  It  would 
give  dignity  and  momentum  and  eclat  to  our  existence. 
Their  thunders  would  lead  to  agitation  good  for  souls, 


THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

while  the  ensuing  calm  would  be  sweet  with  serenity  and 
relief,  and  men  would  be  put  in  tune  for  great  things. 
Nature  would  be  stagnant  and  plague-filled  were  there 
no  storms,  and  Irish  life  is  becoming  stagnant  and  drab 
and  monotonous  since  our  bishops  became  sparing  in  the 
use  of  the  anathema.  Mean  moods  are  the  order  and 
mean  vices  have  sprung  up.  Their  lordships  are  the  only 
epic  institution  left  us,  the  only  force  that  can  save  us 
from  parochialism.  But  they  shrink  into  themselves,  and 
refuse  to  thunder.  In  fact,  our  bishops  are  developing  a 
reserve  and  modesty  and  plainness  of  pretension  that  sav 
or  uncomfortably  of  Protestantism.  That  is  the  very  way 
to  encourage  rationalism  and  incredulity.  The  priests,  I 
regret  to  see,  are  betraying  a  similar  tendency  to  efface 
themselves,  or  minimize  their  own  importance.  How 
many  of  them  will  now  admit  that  they  can  turn  sinners 
or  unbelievers  into  goats  or  blocks  of  wood  if  they  like?  " 

"None  of  them,  I  hope,"  replied  the  professor,  with 
a  smile.  "  The  superstition  that  priests  can  work  miracles 
at  will  cannot,  of  course,  be  in  any  way  encouraged  by 
the  priests  themselves." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  professor,"  said  Geoffrey  plaintively, 
"  don't  try  to  shock  me  in  that  way.  You  make  me  feel 
cold.  You  don't  know  the  mystery  and  solemnity  you 
are  trying  to  take  out  of  life.  Surely  the  power  of  the 
priests  is  one  of  the  great  advantages  we  of  the  laity 
have  over  our  Protestant  neighbors.  You  can't  imagine 
all  it  means  to  us.  More  than  once  in  pettish  moments  of 
my  life  I  've  thought  of  turning  Protestant.  But  then  I 
went  to  the  parson  and  said,  '  Parson,  if  I  join  your 
Church  and  am  going  to  the  devil,  how  far  must  I  go 


MR.    MORTIMKR  AND  TH£  PIT  317 

before  you'll  turn  me  into  a  goat?'  And  he  frankly 
answered,  '  I  can't  turn  you  into  a  goat,  Mr.  Mortimer. 
You  must  go  to  the  devil/  And  naturally  I  replied, 
'  Then,  parson,  you  bring  yourself  down  to  the  level  of  an 
attorney  or  a  chartered  accountant,  and  in  your  fold  I  've 
no  final  protection  against  my  wicked  self.'  My  dear 
professor,  you  can't  realize  the  restraining  influence  on  a 
sinner  of  the  knowledge  that  at  a  certain  stage  he  may  be 
turned  into  a  goat  or  a  piece  of  bog-wood.  He  's  sure 
to  pull  up  soon  or  late.  I  implore  you  not  to  lightly  try 
to  take  away  this  shield  and  shelter  of  ours.  The  duty 
of  today  is  to  emphasize  and  assert  the  power  of  the 
priesthood  more  and  more,  and  to  carry  it  into  spheres  of 
life  where  it  was  never  asserted  before.  The  Irish  laity, 
barring  a  few  revolutionaries  and  faddists,  will  welcome 
whole-heartedly  a  wide-spread  extension  of  the  clerical 
control  of  life.  A  love  of  sacerdotal  dominance  is  in 
grained  in  the  Irish  heart  and  undying  in  the  Irish  im 
agination." 

Maeve  looked  keenly  and  wonderingly  at  Geoffrey. 
Fergus  and  the  professor  laughed.  Geoffrey  seemed 
pained  and  astonished  at  the  laughter. 

"  Mr.  Mortimer  satirizes  us  very  neatly,"  said  the  pro 
fessor.  "  We  have  let  the  people  grow  up  in  a  folk 
lore  conception  of  the  priesthood,  and  now  we  point  to 
popular  ignorance  and  imagination  as  proofs  that  it  would 
be  dangerous  to  put  the  real  truth  plainly  and  simply." 

"  But  surely  you  understand  that  the  imagination  of 
the  people  is  a  sacred  and  fruitful  thing,  and  that  you 
are  bound  not  only  to  respect  it,  but  to  foster  it,"  said 
Geoffrey.  "And  you  know  that  things  may  be  true 


318  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

though  not  literally  facts.  Take  our  friend  O'Hagan 
and  the  fairies.  He  wouldn't  swear  that  little  red-capped 
men  ride  over  the  dells  at  night,  or  dance  in  the  raths, 
yet  he  knows  the  fairies  are  true,  and  he  will  tell  you 
that  they  are  the  popular  embodiment  and  dramatization 
of  part  of  the  wonder  and  the  mysterious  forces  beyond 
actuality.  He  would  not  think  of  destroying  the  popular 
sense  of  that  wonder  and  mystery  just  because  the  little 
red  caps  and  the  diminutive  men  may  not  be  strictly 
correct  details.  It  is  the  sense  of  wonder,  not  the  details, 
that  matters.  So  with  the  priestly  power.  The  sinners 
turned  into  goats  may  be  brilliant  embellishments,  but 
you  need  not  boggle  at  them  if  the  great  central  -fact  — 
awe  and  fear  of  the  priesthood  —  is  preserved." 

Maeve  began  to  wonder  if  Mr.  Geoffrey  Mortimer  were 
a  much  misunderstood  man.  She  had  read  none  of  his 
novels  herself,  and  now  she  asked  her  conscience  if  her 
infinite  prejudice  against  him  was  consistent  with  perfect 
charity.  She  remembered  with  a  certain  humiliation  that 
she  had  first  heard  him  denounced  by  —  curates. 

The  question  of  popular  imagination  and  folk-lore  led 
naturally  to  the  Irish  rural  conception  of  Hell,  for  which 
the  professor  frankly  confessed  a  sheer  intellectual  loath 
ing.  It  was  high  time,  he  said,  to  put  out  of  court  the 
Devil  with  hoof  and  horns,  the  material  fire  and  brim 
stone,  and  to  preach  a  philosophic  doctrine  of  retribution. 
The  horned  Devil  and  material  fire  and  brimstone  were 
not  Church  conceptions,  and  theologians  ignored  them, 
yet  preachers  were  allowed  to  preach  them,  especially  at 
missions,  and  the  serious  question  arose :  Why  were 
preachers  allowed  to  frighten  poor,  simple  congregations 


MR.   MORTIMER  AND  THE  PIT  319 

with  terrors  unknown  to  revelation  and  theology?  The 
material  Hell  of  which  Ireland  heard  was  a  caricature  of 
Catholic  teaching,  and  the  courageous  theologians  who 
would  free  the  Irish  mind  from  this  coarse  and  crude 
terror  would  be  immeasurably  greater  friends  of  the 
nation  than  the  men  who  would  give  her  political  inde 
pendence.  Geoffrey's  face  assumed  a  more  poignant  ex 
pression  as  the  professor  proceeded. 

"  And  so  you  would  not  leave  us  Hell  itself?  "  he  cried 
at  last,  "  at  least  the  time-honored  Hell  and  the  gridirons 
whereon  we  've  seen  our  enemies  roasting  in  fancy,  and 
the  proud  ones  of  this  earth  frizzling,  while  grinning 
demons  danced  round  in  glee.  Professor,  I  '11  protest  to 
the  last  against  your  astounding  innovations.  We,  the 
unreforming,  loyal-hearted  laity,  stand  for  the  old  Pit. 
Hands  off  our  fire  and  brimstone !  You  don't  know  what 
you  would  take  from  us.  To  throw  cold  water  on  Hell- 
fire  after  all  those  ages  would  simply  stagger  humanity. 
The  imagination  of  mankind  would  reel  after  the  drastic 
abolition,  and  would  not  know  where  it  was.  Your  phil 
osophical  abstraction  about  retribution  would  be  cold 
comfort :  no  better  than  metaphysics  to  a  poor  man 
robbed  of  his  beer.  None  of  us  is  afraid  of  a  philoso 
phical  abstraction.  But  Hell  keeps  all  but  the  worst 
of  us  from  descending  to  brutehood.  The  thought  that 
our  enemies  will  frizzle  in  Hell  makes  life  at  least  tolerable 
—  the  thought  of  a  philosophical  abstraction  as  their  des 
tiny  would  never  prevent  us  from  knifing  them." 

The  professor  found  Mr.  Mortimer  exceedingly  en 
tertaining,  and  ironically  congratulated  him  on  his  intel 
lectual  conclusions. 


320  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

"  Intellectual  men,,  my  dear  professor,  intellectual  men 
like  yourself,  have  a  special  interest  in  the  preservation 
and  encouragement  of  preachers  who  preach  Hell-Fire," 
responded  Geoffrey.  "  The  very  fact  that  their  theories 
seem  crude  makes  your  own  more  delicate  sentiments 
shine  out  and  impress  by  the  force  of  contrast,  as  drama 
scores  and  shines  by  contrast  with  melodrama,  and  art 
and  literature  by  contrast  with  '  pot-boilers/  Hell  is 
the  greatest  'pot-boiler'  in  the  history  of  human  art.  It 
is  the  frizzling  foil  to  your  transcendental  philosophy. 
Without  this  contrast  you  could  make  no  impression. 
Leave  Hell-fire  to  the  wild,  melodrama-loving  multitude, 
and  the  very  fact  of  that  sinister  popular  background 
will  help  you  with  the  intellectual  and  the  progressive. 
But  don't  start  your  career  as  a  reformer  by  stunning 
the  human  race.  If  you  stun  it  you  can't  teach  it." 

"  Your  irony  is  agreeable,  Mr.  Mortimer,"  said  the 
professor,  "  but  you  will  find  that  ultimately  we  must 
deal  seriously  with  Hell-fire,  which  our  Church  does  not 
ask  you  to  believe  in  —  she  does,  of  course,  in  retribution 
—  though  theologians  will  call  you  '  temerarious '  and 
other  things  if  you  don't.  The  Hell-fire  pictures  that  are 
drawn  by  certain  preachers,  without  any  authority  but 
folk-lore  and  fancy,  are  a  grievous  evil.  This  question 
is  far  and  away  the  most  serious  one  before  Ireland. 
Ultimately  the  undue  clerical  dominance  of  which  men 
so  justly  complain  depends  dh  the  popular  belief  in 
material  Hell-fire.  But  for  the  dread  of  it,  and  the  belief 
that  opposition  to  priests  or  bishops  on  anything  will  be 
the  means  of  sending  them  to  it  the  people  would  stand 
up  for  their  just  rights.  But  there  is  a  far  greater  ques- 


MR.    MORTIMER  AND  TH£  PIT  321 

tion.  As  things  stand  the  great  force  of  priests  you  have 
in  Ireland  need  not  bestir  themselves  intellectually  or 
socially.  But  if  the  belief  in  material  Hell-Fire  —  not 
retribution,  mind  you  —  were  to  pass  away  the  whole 
situation  would  be  revolutionized,  and  the  ultimate  con 
sequences  for  Church  and  people  would  be  glorious. 
Why?  No  longer  able  to  appeal  to  the  crude  terror 
of  Hell-Fire  the  clergy  would  be  obliged  to  exert  them 
selves,  to  preach  the  love  of  God  and  man,  to  appeal  to 
what  is  noble  in  the  souls  and  hearts  of  their  flocks,  not 
to  what  can  be  cowed  and  terrorized.  And  the  people 
appealed  to  solely  on  their  good  side  would  do  more  in 
an  age  for  the  love  of  God  and  their  fellow-men  and  the 
Christ  in  themselves  than  they  '11  do  in  all  the  aeons  for 
fear  of  any  horned  Devil  and  all  manner  of  fire  and 
brimstone." 

"  'Tis  a  grand  ideal/'  said  Geoffrey,  "  but  'tis  a  vain 
dream.  Man  is  naturally  a  brute  and  a  fool,  and  when 
all  is  said  you  can  only  keep  him  in  order  through  fear 
of  damnation." 

"  Man  is  nothing  of  the  kind,"  replied  An-t-Athair 
O'Muinneog,  with  a  touch  of  passion,  "  and  if  you  can 
not  believe  in  the  perfectibility  of  the  race  you  are  damned 
in  this  world  to  start  with." 

"  You  '11  find  that  the  people  will  fight  for  Hell-Fire," 
declared  Geoffrey. 

Geoffrey  was  generous  with  epigrams  after  tea.  When 
he  left  at  length  for  the  city  he  felt  that  he  had  been 
correct  and  entertaining,  and  that  whatever  the  world 
might  think  of  his  artistic  individuality  his  decorum  as 
middle-aged  gentleman  and  private  citizen  was  still  be- 


322  THE   PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

yond  cavil.  Maeve's  graciousness  as  he  said  good-bye 
seemed  to  set  the  seal  on  his  charter  of  respectability. 

Fergus  and  the  professor  talked  into  the  small  hours 
of  the  morning.  The  professor  in  quiet,  confidential 
moments  had  a  fascinatingly  frank  and  easy  way  of 
expressing  revolutionary  sentiments,,  or  sentiments  that 
would  have  seemed  so  to  the  vast  majority  of  his  Irish 
clerical  contemporaries.  In  some  ways  his  outlook  and 
inlook  recalled  those  of  Father  Kenealy. 

He  regretted  to  say  that  their  friends  in  Maynooth 
were  still  sore  in  spirit  over  the  memorable  indictment, 
"  The  Clergy  Against  Nature,"  and  the  resulting  war 
of  letters  with  Fergus. 

"  They  are  mostly  wrong/'  he  said,  "  but  there  is  a 
certain  crude  right  on  their  side.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  priests  who  meet  love  with  the  rod  and 
denunciation.  I  suppose  it  is  another  phase  of  the  general 
order  and  policy  of  seeing  the  Irish  people  a  primitive 
and  ignorant  folk  who  are  to  be  bullied  and  cowed, 
instead  of  a  sensitive  and  talented  race  not  difficult  to 
hearten,  uplift  and  inspire  with  a  sense  of  the  good  and 
beauty  of  life.  Common  sense  alone  should  teach  us 
that  so  universal,  essential,  and  world-driving  a  force  as 
love  cannot  be  ignored  or  suppressed,  and  the  true  philo 
sophy  is  to  cultivate  as  clear  and  sane  an  understanding 
of  it  as  possible.  Even  so  it  is  hard  to  guard  against 
all  its  dangers,  but  knowledge  minimizes  them,  and  the 
trained,  prepared  youth  has  the  likelihood  of  being  able 
to  make  it  his  beneficent  servant  when  it  comes,  or  to 
leave  it  alone  if  he  thinks  his  intellectual  and  spiritual 
development  will  be  freer  and  better  without  it.  That 


MR.    MORTIMER  AND  THE}  PIT  323 

it  has  led  to  monstrous  evil,  partly  through  ignorance  and 
want  of  trained  and  educated  character,  is  all  the  more 
reason  for  facing  it  and  trying  to  be  prepared  for  it. 
Great,  deep  forces  are  to  be  studied  sympathetically  so 
that  they  may  be  utilized,  regulated  or  avoided.  The 
Maynooth  and  general  clerical  habit  of  treating  love  as  a 
disease  or  a  scandal,  and  to  be  crushed  or  hidden  out  of 
sight,  is  worse  than  foolish." 

"And  it  all  seems  so  very  elementary  a  mistake  that 
it  ought  to  have  been  discovered  long  ago,"  said  Fergus. 
"  But  really  that  is  our  great  trouble  in  Ireland  as  yet. 
All  the  things  we  are  standing  for,  startling  though  they 
are  to  some  in  high  places  and  to  many  in  low  places, 
appear  painfully  elementary.  We  don't  seem  to  get 
near  the  higher  and  deeper  business  of  life  at  all.  For 
that  reason  I  sometimes  rebel  against  my  work  on  the 
paper.  '  Explosive  ideas !  —  revolution ! '  cry  formalists, 
middle-class  capitalists,  graziers,  and  other  non-producers. 
'  Only  truisms!  '  I  say  myself,  '  and  anything  that  was  in 
any  way  distinctive  within  me  must  be  becoming  atro 
phied.  I  want  to  leave  these  truisms  and  look  at  the 
deeper  realities  of  life.'  " 

"  It  is  much  the  same  way  in  the  theological  order," 
the  professor  said.  "  Some  of  us  who  think  we  are 
expressing  truisms  are  looked  upon  askance  as  the  preach 
ers  of  revolution.  We  also  rebel  against  the  ordeal  of 
declaring  truisms  and  want  to  let  our  deeper  selves  have 
freedom;  we  yearn  to  spread  the  sweetness  and  light 
of  the  finer  philosophy  of  the  Church;  and  we  want  to 
let  our  people  know  all  the  good  and  gracious  things 
which  the  spirit  of  man  has  proved  and  achieved  since 


324  THE)   PLOUGH    AND   THE   CROSS 

the  days  of  the  scholastics.  But  formalism  and  folk-lore 
—  though  much  folk-lore  originally  had  probably  a  pro 
found  meaning  —  and  a  certain  shilling  shocker  theology, 
unworthy  of  the  great  mind  of  the  Church,  obstruct  the 
view  and  make  the  atmosphere  heavy  around  us." 

"  But  everywhere  in  the  Catholic  world  there  is  a  new 
stirring  of  soul,  and  what  may  be  called  a  certain  revolu 
tion  of  explanation,"  interjected  Fergus. 

"  Ireland,  I  am  afraid,  is  far  and  away  the  most  back 
ward  of  all  Catholic  countries,"  replied  his  friend. 
"  There  are  Irish  priests  who  would  stand  aghast  at  Dr. 
Barry's  theory  of  the  nature  of  scriptural  inspiration, 
and  you  know  he  is  not  so  advanced  as  certain  Catholic 
theologians  of  today.  And  it  may  take  Maynooth  as  a 
whole  generation  to  come  up  with  Dr.  Barry,  or  at  least 
to  admit  it  frankly  and  fully.  And  the  Irish  priests  as 
a  whole  will  be  startled  and  indignant  over  the  theory  of 
Immanence  for  a  long  time  to  come." 

"  I  can  well  believe  that,"  said  Fergus.  "  Considering 
our  materialism  of  explanation  and  symbol  for  hundreds 
of  years  it  necessarily  seems  revolutionary.  The  central 
theory,  or  one  of  them,  that  revelation  is  experience  not 
statement,  is  unthinkable  to  anybody  who  has  the  later 
folk-lore  not  the  philosophical  spirit.  God  is  very  near 
and  neighborly  to  the  simple  Irish  country  mind,  not  the 
illimitable  and  inexpressible  spiritual  entity  He  is  to 
yourself  and  the  Immanentists  generally.  From  your 
standpoint,  it  is  easy  and  gladsome  to  grasp  the  fact  that 
the  Divine  Spirit,  the  Eternal  Will,  Who  is  the  governing 
and  active  center  of  the  whole  system  of  spirits  and  intel 
ligences  and  wills,  communicates  with  us  through  our 


MR.    MORTIMER  AND  TH£  PIT  325 

spiritual  entities  and  in  spiritual  ways,  and  that  revela 
tion  is  perennial  in  every  soul  that  is  spiritually  alive  and 
active.  But  the  general  Irish  mind  has  got  into  the  habit 
of  assuming  that  the  Divine  takes  some  material  form 
before  we,  though  we  have  divine  entities,  can  at  all 
realize  or  understand  the  message." 

"Admitting  all  that,  while  it  may  account  for  the  atti 
tude  of  the  masses,  it  does  not  explain  the  difficulty  with 
the  clergy,"  the  professor  said.  Fergus  suggested  that 
most  of  humanity  was  in  the  same  condition. 

"And  really,"  he  said,  "  in  these  time-and-space  degrees 
and  stages  of  ours  the  material  presses  so  much  that 
unless  man  is  on  his  guard  it  may  hypnotize  and  over 
whelm  him,  drive  the  spiritual  part  of  him  into  the  back 
ground,  so  to  say,  or  to  sleep.  We  have  not  the  vivid 
sense  that  our  ancestors  had  of  the  unity  and  ultimate 
divinity  of  Life,  and  of  the  higher  Identity  with  which 
we  are  bound.  Even  Churches,  which  are  essentially 
custodians  of  moral  lore,  and  the  helpers  of  the  spiritual 
lives  of  their  children,  drift  into  materialism  of  expression 
and  symbolism,  and  into  stereotyped  and  formal  ways 
which  it  takes  something  like  a  revolution  to  change. 
Theologians  hold,  though  it  is  very  hard  to  understand, 
that  if  Providence  inspires  your  mind  in  a  special  way  at 
a  given  moment  He  does  so  by  the  exercise  or  infusion 
of  actual  physical  energy.  Altogether,  you  cannot  well 
blame  the  generality  of  priests  or  people  for  any  material 
izing  of  purely  spiritual  ideas,  entities  and  communica 
tions." 

"  Whomever  or  whatever  we  may  blame  we  are  not 
exactly  bold  or  brilliant  in  Maynooth  —  I  mean  the  for- 


326  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE)    CROSS 

ward  spirits.  In  fact  we  stand  reflective  at  the  cross 
roads,  doubtful  of  the  road  to  take  and  of  the  pace  at 
which  to  take  it.  Immanence  is  a  spacious  and  glorious 
illustration  of  the  Master's  dictum,  '  The  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  is  within  you.'  It  shows  that  each  individual  if 
he  wills  it  may  be,  as  it  were,  one  of  God's  Churches. 
But  we  in  Maynooth  who  feel  thus  are  before  our  time 
and  shrink  from  heroic  courses.  We  are  also  afraid  that 
while  justly  insisting  on  the  truth  I  have  mentioned,  and 
rightly  emphasizing  the  profound  significance  of  individ 
ual  spiritual  experience,  certain  leading  Immanentists  are 
coming  to  minimize  the  august  importance  of  the  visible 
Church  that  the  people  understand.  There  is  a  dangerous 
tendency  to  glide  from  the  extreme  that  the  Church  is 
everything  to  the  extreme  that  it  is  little  or  nothing.  The 
mistakes  and  pretensions  of  Churchmen  have  blinded  even 
leaders  to  that  sense  of  the  Communion  of  Saints,  that 
co-operation  of  spirit,  that  help  towards  the  realization  of 
Divinity,  for  which  the  ideal  Church  stands.  So  we  are 
afraid  of  the  future,  and  of  clash  and  crisis  that  will 
make  the  task  of  freeing  the  Church  in  Ireland  from 
formalism,  and  of  turning  the  people  from  materialized 
folk-lore  to  philosophic  Christianity,  appallingly  difficult." 

"  Immanence  is  for  the  few  as  yet,"  said  Fergus, 
"  though  we  find  its  appeal  coming  home  in  unexpected 
places.  I  own  I  was  considerably  surprised  when  a  May- 
nooth  professor  first  told  me  that  it  stirred  him  like  a 
trumpet-call.  But  for  the  people  in  general  it  is  a  ques 
tion  not  of  today  but  of  tomorrow." 

"  Very  likely,"  responded  An  t-Athair  O'Muinneog. 
"  It  is  being  borne  in  upon  me  that  the  great  initial  work 


MR.    MORTIMER  AND  THE  PIT  327 

is  to  face  the  material  Hell-Fire  terror.  When  the  people 
have  left  craven  fear  for  something  philosophic  and  uplift 
ing,  and  the  Christ-sense  of  human  and  divine  brother 
hood —  not  as  flabby  sentiment  but  as  a  profound  and 
eternal  fact  —  many  glorious  things  will  be  possible.  I  '11 
give  all  my  available  time  for  the  next  year  or  two.  I 
thought  a  pamphlet  would  do,  but  it  will  grow  to  a  book." 

"  The  book  will  be  a  mighty  shock,"  said  Fergus. 

"  Let  us  trust  it  will  be  a  salutary  one,"  replied'  the 
professor.  "  The  pitiful  fact  may  be  that  the  people,  as 
the  ironic  Mortimer  declares,  will  fight  for  Hell-Fire  — 
at  first." 

The  talk  turned  to  the  visit  of  the  Bishop  of  Dun  na 
Riogh. 

"  We  sometimes  fear  in  Maynooth  that  the  Standing 
Committee,  or  the  bishops  as  a  whole,  by  some  drastic 
action  may  throw  the  Irish  Church  into  confusion/'  said 
the  professor,  with  a  certain  sadness.  "  Most  of  their 
lordships  are  old,  and  painfully  out  of  touch  with  the 
people,  and  unfriendly  to  the  spirit  of  democracy.  But 
to  attack  a  national  journal  that  has  tried  so  hopefully 
to  awaken  mind  and  to  clear  the  air  at  the  same  time,  is, 
I  trust,  a  blunder  yet  beyond  them.  Still  it  might  possibly 
be  their  lordships'  way  of  dealing  a  blow  at  advanced 
Maynooth — they  shrink  from  hitting  us  directly,  especially 
as  they  Ve  assured  the  Vatican  that  there  's  no  Modernism 
in  Ireland,  and  political  Rome  holds  its  hand  in  regard  to 
the  Gaelic  League.  Attack  would  be  an  irony  now  that 
friends  in  Maynooth  are  '  not  playing  with  you.'  Time 
will  tell  if  the  bishops  ignore  the  time-spirit  or  misunder 
stand  it." 

Which  it  did. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

A  £%ANK    MOVEMENT 

FEW  mornings  later  Fergus  had  a 
visit  from  Mr.  Jonathan  Milligan, 
son  of  his  late  friend.  At  the  best 
of  times  young  Mr.  Milligan  seemed 
graver  than  his  years.  Today  he  was 
careworn  and  depressed.  He  at  once 
unbosomed  himself  on  the  subject  of 
trouble. 

"  Mr.  O'Hagan,"  he  said  sadly,  "  I 
thought  I  could  work  for  Ireland  as 
my  father  did.  I  have  little  of  his  knowledge  of  Ireland 
and  the  peasantry,  I  was  educated  at  Trinity  College, 
though  a  Catholic,  and  I.'ve  been  devoted  to  travel  and 
sport  till  the  last  year  or  so.  But  I  have  earnestly 
desired  to  carry  on  his  good  work.  But  good  work  is 
hard  at  the  best  of  times  in  Ireland.  Things  have  been 
so  ordered  that  /  now  find  it  to  be  impossible." 

"  That  is  a  startling  statement,  Mr.  Milligan,  for  one 
of  your  talent  and  opportunity.  You  have  it  in  your 
power,  with  God's  help,  to  change  the  face  of  Meath,  and 
give  a  heartening  example  to  Ireland." 


A  FLANK  MOVEMENT  329 

Young  Mr.  Milligan  shook  his  head  grimly.  He  took 
a  letter  from  his  pocket  and  handed  it  to  Fergus.  The 
latter  opened  his  eyes  in  wonder  as  he  gathered  its  pur 
port. 

It  was  a  short  matter-of-fact  note  conveying  the 
decision  of  the  Standing  Committee  of  the  Bishops.  It 
declared  that  Fainne  an  Lae  was  becoming  a  pernicious 
enemy  of  the  Church,  that  it  would  be  denounced  public 
ly  and  its  reading  by  the  faithful  forbidden.  The  matter 
apparently  was  considered  so  serious  that  the  exalted 
dignitary  who  had  presided  at  the  meeting  had  himself 
written. 

"  But  that  is  illogical  and  tyrannical,"  said  Fergus. 
"  Not  a  single  proof  or  illustration  is  ventured  upon. 
We  have  been  mainly  concerned  with  social,  literary  and 
national  questions  in  Fainne  an  Lae,  and  clerical  ques 
tions  have  only  been  discussed  in  their  social  and  national 
bearings.  Our  friends  in  Maynooth " 

"  You  need  not  go  into  these  things  at  all,  Mr. 
O'Hagan,"  said  Mr.  Milligan  promptly.  "  We  have  all 
been  proud  of  the  paper  and  delighted  to  show  it  to  our 
friends  everywhere.  Every  new  reader  has  been  aston 
ished  at  its  broad  and  intellectual  character.  But  you 
don't  know  the  priests  —  except  certain  of  the  younger 
ones  who  have  no  influence  yet.  The  local  clergy  have 
loaded  us  with  reproaches  over  the  Boyne  Valley  work, 
and  what  they  describe  as  the  rise  of  the  'anti-clerical 
colony '  at  Cluainlumney.  We  've  reasoned  with  them, 
but  'tis  utterly  useless.  My  mother's  life  of  late  has 
been  a  torture  through  it  all.  My  sister  who  is  a  nun  has 
been  visited,  and  astounding  stories  told  to  her  about  the 


330  THE  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

paper  and  its  alleged  '  irreligion.'  And  now  this  bolt 
from  the  blue!  Of  course  we  cannot  think  of  resisting 
the  bishops." 

"  You  need  not,"  said  Fergus.  "  I  and  Painne  an  Lae 
will  do  the  resisting.  Their  lordships  have  put  themselves 
in  the  wrong.  They  cannot  succeed  with  such  high 
handed  action  in  the  twentieth  century." 

"  I  am  afraid  they  can,"  said  young  Mr.  Milligan 
despondently.  "  They  can  do  anything  they  desire  in 
Ireland.  I  'd  like  to  hold  out  myself  —  but  life  is  before 
me,  and  I  'm  engaged  to  be  marrie'd,  and  one  does  not 
court  ruin  in  such  circumstances.  And  resistance  would 
only  mean  ruin  —  of  our  stock-broking  business  so  largely 
patronized  by  the  clergy,  to  begin  with.  But  whatever  my 
feelings  and  wishes  may  be  I  am  simply  helpless.  The 
property  is  my  mother's,  not  mine,  and  she  is  distracted 
at  the  very  thought  of  ecclesiastical  censure.  Very  near 
and  dear  relations  of  ours  are  priests  and  nuns,  and  you 
cannot  imagine  the  pressure  and  the  influences  brought 
to  bear  on  them,  and  how  they  worry  us.  We  are  helpless 
in  a  net,  and  there  's  only  one  way  out.  My  father  is 
gone,  and  my  mother  must  not  be  driven  to  the  grave 
through  torture.  She  is  intensely  devotional,  and  very 
simple  in  her  faith,  and  cannot  distinguish  between  reli 
gion  and  ecclesiastical  politics." 

"  But  surely,"  said  Fergus,  "  the  bishops  are  fair- 
minded  men,  and  understand  that  ye  were  not  responsible 
for  the  opinions  of  the  paper.  If  anyone  ought  to  be 
censured  it  is  myself.  When  the  Bishop  of  Dun  na  Riogh 
called  to  see  me  the  other  day  —  he  was  my  P.  P.  in  early 
days  —  we  had  a  long  discussion  about  the  paper  and  the 


A    FI.ANK    MOV^MlvNT  33 T 

episcopal  attitude  to  it,  but  he  never  suggested  that  ye 
were  to  be  troubled." 

"  The  bishops,"  Mr.  Milligan  replied,  "  will  always 
work  quietly  if  they  can.  They  desire  to  get  rid  of  the 
paper  as  easily  as  possible,  so  they  come  down  upon  those 
who  finance  it.  And  the  local  clergy  assist  in  the  cam 
paign  by  attacking  us  over  the  colony  at  Cluainlumney, 
and  by  hints  of  attacks  on  the  other  industries  if  we  stand 
firm.  It  is  all  grossly  unjust,  all  bitter  to  bear,  all  char 
acteristic  of  the  ordeals  that  attend  honest  projects  for 
progress,  through  self-reliance,  in  Ireland.  It  seems  a 
poor  and  weak  thing  to  do,  but  we  must  simply  give  up 
those  projects  of  father's.  We  must  stop  Fainne  an  Lae, 
or  finance  it  no  more,  and  the  developments  at  Cluain 
lumney  must  cease." 

He  spoke  the  last  sentence  in  an  aggrieved  and  hesitat 
ing  tone,  and  then  looked  as  one  who  had  at  last  got  rid 
of  an  awkward  and  disagreeable  duty. 

Fergus  saw  the  pity,  humiliation  and  anti-climax  of  so 
extreme  a  step,  and  vigorously  said  so.  Mr.  Jonathan 
Milligan  agreed.  It  was  pitiful,  humiliating  and  an  anti 
climax.  It  was  a  surrender  of  the  trust  bequeathed  by 
his  father,  and  that  surrender  hurt  him  sore.  But,  he 
gloomily  declared,  it  was  inevitable.  The  bishops  and 
clergy  had  spoken.  That  was  the  end.  So  far  as  they 
were  concerned  Fainne  an  Lac  must  cease ;  and  in  Cluain 
lumney,  though  they  would  keep  the  few  Meath  settlers, 
the  other  homes  must  be  broken  up. 

Fergus  urged  that  at  least  there  should  be  a  respite  — 
that  the  decision  should  not  take  effect  till  he  would  have 
time  to  make  other  arrangements  for  Fainne  an  Lae. 


332  TH£  PLOUGH  AND  TH£  CROSS 

An  effort  must  be  made  at  all  costs  to  save  the  situation. 
The  mission  of  the  paper  should  be  remembered ;  it  was 
a  national  not  a  personal  concern.  And  Cluainlumney 
was  a  national  example,  too. 

Even  to  this  Mr.  Milligan  said  the  family  could  not 
agree.  Fainne  an  Lae,  so  far  as  they  were  responsible, 
must  end  with  the  issue  of  that  week.  His  mother  was  so 
stunned  by  the  threat  of  ecclesiastical  denunciation  that 
her  one  thought  was  to  be  clear  and  free  for  ever  of  the 
dangerous  concern.  She  was  as  one  bound  to  a  solitary 
tree  in  a  thunderstorm.  To  escape  from  the  tree  was 
the  all-absorbing  thought.  .  .  . 

Often  during  the  day  Fergus  thought  of  his  last  chat 
in  Cluainlumney  with  old  Mr.  Milligan :  of  the  old  man's 
sadness,  his  hopes,  his  determination,  his  dreams.  Now 
he  was  gone,  and  already  in  the  Boyne  Valley  the  edict 
had  gone  forth  that  the  scheme  of  his  old  age  must  be 
marred,  that  his  great  work  as  a  whole  was  not  to  live 
and  grow  after  him.  And  his  family?  Fergus  made 
liberal  allowances.  They  were  kindly  and  generous  folk, 
but  had  little  of  the  intimate  grip  of  Irish  realities  and 
none  of  the  sense  of  the  tears  of  things  possessed  by  the 
late  head  of  the  household ;  for  they  had  had  luxury  and 
an  artistic  environment  from  the  start,  and  he  in  his 
younger  days  had  had  to  battle  severely  with  circum 
stance.  For  his  labors  and  memory  theirs  was  and  ever 
would  be  a  touching  affection,  but  they  had  not  that  love 
of  Ireland  and  humanity  which  comes,  as  his  came,  from 
feeling  and  suffering  with  them.  And  when  clerical  and 
episcopal  pressure  came !  —  well,  with  peace  and  ease  and 
riches,  perhaps  it  was  not  easy  in  slumberous,  unheroic 


A  FLANK  MOVEMENT  333 

Meath  to  give  a  second  thought  to  the  alternative  of 
martyrdom.  .  .  . 

Fainne  an  Lae  had  thus  been  deprived  at  a  stroke  of 
its  financial  stay  and  basis,  a  fact  which  would  mean  in 
ordinary  circumstances  that  its  career  was  done.  Fergus 
was  confronted  with  an  irony  against  which  he  was  often 
to  chafe  in  after  days:  the  sordid  necessity,  under  mod 
ern  conditions,  of  troubling  about  money  before  ideas  and 
ideals  could  be  effectively  enunciated,  or  indeed  enunciated 
at  all  through  a  newspaper.  Finance  had  little  or  no 
place  in  his  philosophy ;  he  detested  the  brutal  tyranny  of 
money :  its  position  in  the  latter-day  social  economy  was 
enough  to  make  one  who  believed  in  progress  and  brother 
hood  a  thorough-going  socialist.  To  withstand  all  the 
powers  that  might  wage  war  against  the  spirit  of  nation 
ality  and  the  new  sense  of  freedom  of  thought  gave  him 
comparatively  little  concern.  Over  the  monetary  irony 
and  impasse  he  was  indignant  and  rebellious.  One  was 
intellectual  stress;  the  other  was  crude  and  lowering 
materialism. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

TRANSITION  AND  TRIAL 

JERGUS  told  the  story  of  the  episcopal 
move  against  Fainne  an  Lae  in  the  issue — 
the  last  of  the  old  series  —  that  appeared 
after  the  visit  of  young  Mr.  Milligan.  The 
sudden  action,  he  shrank  from  saying 
panic,  of  the  proprietors  —  or  at  least  those 
who  had  furnished  the  funds  as  distinct 
from  the  ideas  —  left  no  alternative  from  the 
cessation  of  publication :  for  a  spell.  Fainne  an 
Lae  would  reappear  after  a  brief  interval,  when 
new  lines  were  laid  and  new  arrangements  com 
pleted.  The  spirit  of  Young  Ireland  was  to  be  put  to  a 
happy  and  it  might  be  historic  test.  It  could  show  that 
no  attack,  however  formidable,  would  make  it  run  away 
from  its  principles,  or  falter  in  the  expression  of  its 
awakened  national  spirit,  its  sense  of  a  creative  and  co 
operative  national  realm,  its  devotion  to  honest  freedom 
of  thought,  its  zest  for  every  discernible  path  towards 
social  and  intellectual  emancipation.  It  was  one  of  life's 
ironies  that  many  species  of  garbage  and  grossness  in 
newspaper  form  could  flood  the  land  unchecked,  or  scarce- 


TRANSITION  AND  TRIAI,  335 

ly  checked,  while  a  thoughtful  organ  that  expressed  not 
only  the  mind  of  young  lay  Ireland  but  of  advanced 
Maynooth  should  be  suppressed  (if  possible)  ;  a  journal 
noted,  moreover,  for  the  sense  of  reverence  and ,  zest 
which  its  writers  evinced  and  manifested  in  spiritual 
things;  whose  ideal  of  the  nation  was  a  great  human 
household,  with  a  sense  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  wjthin 
it ;  that  ever  wrought  and  thought  for  enlightenment  and 
progress,  deeming  stagnation  and  formalism  to  be  foes 
of  the  spirit  everywhere.  The  struggle  now  forced  upon 
it  avowedly  in  the  name  of  religion,  but  in  reality  ecclesi 
astical  politics,  was  to  be  regarded  as  part  of  the  Day's 
Work.  As  Newman  had  said :  "  I  did  not  regard  it  as 
inopportune,  for  times  and  seasons  are  known  to  God 
alone,  and  persecution  may  be  as  opportune,  though  not 
so  pleasant  as  peace." 

The  story  created  a  sensation  in  Scotland,  England, 
France,  Belgium,  Italy,  America,  and  other  distant  places. 
Fergus  in  the  next  few  weeks  received  a  large  number 
of  British,  Continental  and  American  papers  from  which 
he  learned  that  there  was  mighty  stress  of  soul  in  Ireland, 
and  that  the  day  of  the  inevitable  modern  struggle  for 
freedom  of  thought  had  dawned  for  even  her.  He  was 
overwhelmed  with  work,  and  was  not  able  to  go  forth 
and  see  the  signs  of  the  revolution  for  himself ;  and  it 
was  strange  how  very  little  the  home  Press  was  inclined 
to  tell  him  or  anybody  else  about  it.  In  fact  the  home 
Press  kept  its  gaze  intently  on  foreign  crimes  and  sensa 
tions.  To  look  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  was  safe ;  the 
realm  of  ecclesiastical  politics  at  home  was  dangerous 
ground. 


336  THE:   PLOUGH    AND   THE    CROSS 

But  if  the  home  Press  had  its  eyes  on  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  and  was  diplomatically  blind  to  domestic  drama, 
Fergus  was  the  recipient  of  reams  of  home  correspond 
ence  and  of  many  a  missive  from  Irish  folk  abroad.  Of 
the  home  correspondents  there  were  sundry  varieties. 
The  majority  of  the  Protestants  on  the  south  side  of  the 
Boyne  declared  that  it  was  a  glorious  thing  to  see  Catholic 
laymen  resisting  the  intolerance  of  clerics  of  their  own 
creed,  and  insisting  that  all  creeds  were  Irish ;  but  at  the 
same  time,  they  said,  it  was  a  struggle  within  the  Catholic 
fold,  and  it  would  be  bad  taste  on  the  part  of  Protestants 
to  intervene  in  any  way.  Sturdy  northern  Presbyterians 
were  interested  but  dubious;  the  idea  of  a  Catholic  of 
the  south  daring  to  think  his  own  thoughts,  much  less 
express  them,  was  a  shock  to  all  their  theories.  Of  the 
Catholics  a  host  of  professional  business  men  averred 
that  their  hearts  were  with  Fergus  and  his  friends  in  the 
struggle,  but  that  they  dare  not  show  it;  it  would  mean 
inevitable  ruin,  such  was  the  power  of  the  clergy  in  their 
districts  though  the  young  generation  was  beginning  to 
ask  questions.  There  were  still  some,  even  amongst 
the  avowedly  educated,  who  suggested  that  it  was  un 
lucky  to  differ  from  bishops  or  clergymen  on  any  ques 
tion  in  life. 

Official  Gaelic  Leaguers  said  the  paper  was  right, 
but  before  its  time,  and  they  would  read  and  revel  in 
the  new  Fainne  an  Lae,  sub  rosa,  but  to  recognize  or 
support  it  publicly  would  set  the  clergy  against  the  Irish 
language  movement,  and  that  would  mean  the  death 
thereof  in  the  still  confused  and  cowering  country.  Some 
of  these  bold  leaders  considered  that  Fainne  an  Lae 


TRANSITION  AND  TRIAL  337 

should  have  bowed  to  the  bishops,  watered  down  its 
policy,  and  bided  its  time  for  another  ten  years.  There 
would  then  be  little  slavery  in  the  people,  and  the  truth 
could  be  told  politely  to  the  episcopacy.  Everyone  knew 
that  wonders  would  happen  in  "  the  next  ten  years  "  if 
only  folk  were  patient  and  did  not  tempt  fate.  In  the 
face  of  emigration,  pessimism  and  many-sided  decay- this 
showed  a  rosy  if  unconvincing  optimism.  Messages  from 
young  priests  of  progressive  and  liberal  minds,  and  from 
hundreds  of  the  rising  and  eager-hearted  laity  through 
the  land,  were  the  things  that  stood  out  most  brightly  in 
those  days  from  the  background  of  confusion  and  moral 
cowardice. 

The  spirit  of  a  host  of  the  country  clergy  changed  in 
a  peculiar  degree.  Fainne  an  Lae  might  have  been  right 
and  helpful  before,  and  the  episcopal  action  mistaken,  but 
to  contest  that  action,  right  or  wrong,  was,  to  their  think 
ing,  unseemly  disobedience,  a  flouting  of  the  organization 
of  the  Church,  an  assertion  of  self  against  sacred  author 
ity,  a  profane  anti-clericalism.  For  itself,  and  to  shield 
a  faithful  people  against  evil  example,  and  to  guard 
against  the  possibility  of  more  pernicious  revolt  in  the 
future  it  must  be  steadily,  silently,  subtly  stamped  out! 
Innately  justifiable  resistance  to  episcopal  and  clerical 
wrong  became  pernicious  and  immoral  through  the  fact 
and  act  of  resistance;  laymen  presuming  to  defend  a 
position  against  bishops  and  clergy  implied  a  sense  of 
equality  with  them,  a  raising  of  themselves  to  the  episco 
pal  or  clerical  plane — an  unthinkable  assumption  in  Ire 
land.  When  Fergus  questioned  this  philosophy,  and  asked 
for  the  authority  on  which  it  was  based,  he  was  informed 


338  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE;  CROSS 

that  the  strength  of  the  bishops  and  clergy  in  Ireland  was 
that  they  never  made  the  tactical  mistake  of  defending  any 
pretension  or  giving  any  authority.  They  were  the  au 
thority.  That  was  the  Alpha  and  Omega.  There  lay 
their  absolute  might. 

Then  there  was  a  great  folk-lore-loving,  uninstructed 
mass  of  simple-minded  people  who  learned  more  or  less 
vaguely  that  terrible  men  had  arisen  in  Dublin,  who, 
prompted  by  the  Devil,  were  "  against  the  priests  and 
bishops,"  and  the  Church,  and  the  unexampled  piety  of 
the  Irish  race,  and  were  to  bring  out  a  paper  that  would 
be  a  scandal-  to  the  blessed  island  from  which  St.  Patrick 
banished  snakes  and  demons  and  Paganism.  Whether 
the  ground  would  suddenly  open  and  swallow  those  evil 
men,  or  whether  the  bishops  and  priests  would  turn  them 
into  goats,  or  whether  they  would  suddenly  be  filled  with 
penitence  for  their  sinful  ways  and  be  reconciled  to  the 
Church,  was  as  yet  uncertain;  but  dramatic  justice  would 
be  done  somehow. 

There  was  another  element  whose  reason  rebelled 
against  episcopal  and  clerical  dictation,  but  whose  imagin 
ation  was  still  awed  by  it,  and  had  a  vague  horror  of  the 
idea  of  any  clash  with  it.  A  further  element  thought  it 
better  to  endure  incidental  clerical  aggression  rather  than 
endanger  by  any  protest  the  essential  religious  influence 
of  the  priests.  Yet  other  elements  were  sapped  or  atro 
phied  or  ruined  by  greed,  materialism,  betting,  drink,  or 
semi-starvation.  Within  the  four  seas  of  the  island  the 
social  and  psychological  conditions  were  various  and 
divided.  Several  ages  met  and  many  modes  and  nations 
jostled  one  another  unconsciously  in  Ireland. 


TRANSITION  AND  TRIAI,  339 

Arrangements  were  at  length  completed,  and  on  finan 
cial  resources  that  in  other  days  would  have  shocked  or 
daunted  Fergus  —  the  truest  friends  were  poor,  and  rich 
ones  were  afraid  or  selfish  —  the  new  Fainne  an  Lae  was 
launched.  But  he  and  his  friends  were  prepared  for 
stress  and  sacrifice,  for  toil  and  poverty,  and  the  scheme 
and  spirit  were  co-operative.  The  foreman  of  the  old 
days  came  along  smiling  and  announced  in  the  case-room 
with  an  emphasis  only  known  to  printers  in  tragic  mo 
ments  that  this  at  long  last  was  a  printing  establishment, 
and  tired  comps  who  wanted  a  convalescent  home  would 
be  thrown  downstairs.  Thus  began  a  struggle  unique  in 
Ireland.  The  older  types  of  clerics  had  laid  their  plans 
warily,  and  they  worked  subtly,  especially  in  the  country 
places  —  their  task  was  harder  in  the  cities.  Their  press 
ure  on  advertisers  and  news-agents  was  speedily  felt.  It 
was  direct  or  roundabout  according  to  subject  and  cir 
cumstances  ;  they  had  exhaustive  knowledge  of  character 
to  start  with.  They  looked  on  the  very  posters  of  the 
daring  journal  as  challenging  banners  of  the  army  of 
revolt  and  evil,  and  acted  accordingly.  Fergus  had 
no  illusions  as  to  the  nature  of  the  battle  that  was  to 
be  his.  Argument  or  intellect  would  not  be  brought 
to  bear  against  him,  but  an  organization  that  spread 
fear  and  slept  not.  The  hope  was  in  the  younger  genera 
tion,  lay  and  clerical.  Both  sides  felt  that  if  so  simple  a 
thing  as  the  existence  of  one  of  the  world's  thousands  of 
journals  was  the  nominal  question,  the  issue  was  between 
the  might  and  dominance  of  ecclesiastical  autocracy  and 
politics  on  the  one  hand,  and  freedom  of  thought  and  the 
spirit  on  the  other.  It  was  a  sign  and  portent  of  the 


340  THE;  PLOUGH  AND  TH£  CROSS 

gathering  day  when  men  would  choose  between  the  Un- 
tilled  Fields  and  the  Tilled  —  Tilled  Fields  where  the 
soils  were  subtle  and  deep. 

Apart  altogether  from  the  great  principle  at  issue  Fer 
gus  was  glad  when  matters  were  in  train  again.  Exhaust 
ing  and  detailed  though  the  work  of  such  an  organ  might 
be,  it  had  a  certain  unity  and  zest  and  even  charm.  The 
weeks  of  toilsome  correspondence  and  wearisome  busi 
ness  arrangements  had  been  a  distracting  ordeal,  giving 
little  scope  to  the  real  self.  He  had  begun  to  feel  a 
broken  and  incoherent  personality  intellectually ;  one  who 
longed  vainly  and  hopelessly  for  repose  and  dreams,  the 
magic  of  serene  creative  work  in  a  restful  intellectual 
land ;  and  who  might  as  well  —  such  were  circumstances 
and  Ireland  —  have  called  to  one  of  the  fairies  to  arise 
and  bring  him  "  a  sweet  cup  of  dew  .  .  .  cold  from  the 
moon." 

A  grievous  blow  was  the  news  of  the  death  of  Father 
Martin  Murray.  All  Gaeldom  that  had  known  him  was 
shocked  and  grief-stricken;  Fergus,  who  knew  his  heart 
and  ideals  more  than  most  men,  felt  for  the  time  that  the 
ways  of  destiny  were  startling  and  elusive  indeed.  Father 
Martin  had  passed  away  after  a  brief  illness  in  the 
northern  English  haunt  where  he  had  spent  the  best  of 
his  teaching  career,  and  where  old  friends  called  and 
welcomed  him.  Fergus  was  sure  that  the  failure  of  his 
Irish  hopes  had  had  much  to  do  with  his  early  and  la 
mented  death,  far  from  Eire  and  "  the  true  Gaelic  free 
masonry  of  kindness."  Few,  as  the  years  passed  and 
dimmed  his  beautiful  memory,  might  recall  and  realize 
how  great  a  spirit  had  been  borne  away,  and  what  Young 


TRANSITION  AND  TRIAL  341 

Ireland  lost  in  the  loss  of  his  culture,  his  ideals,  and  his 
rare  personality. 

Fergus  could  only  console  himself  with  the  resolve 
that  at  least  they  would  be  interpreted  and  reflected 
in  the  new  Fainne  an  Lae ;  nobler  ideals  it  could  not 
find  to  form.  He  made  his  resolve  good,  but  often 
in  days  of  stress  and  crisis  he  longed  for  the  old  heart- 
open  counsel,  the  brave  philosophy,  and  the  magnet 
ism  of  individuality  that  made  counsel  and  philosophy 
so  human.  The  converse  and  seanchus  of  London  days 
and  nights,  when  already  they  were  spiritually  at  home 
in  New  Ireland,  would  come  back,  and  the  face  a-glow 
and  the  musical  voice  of  An  t-Athair  Mairtin  —  his  voice 
had  a  strange,  almost  songful  beauty  when  he  was  deeply 
moved  —  would  arise  in  hallowed,  romantic  remem 
brance.  The  eager  talk,  the  melodious  tones,  and  the 
human  pathos  of  the  end  set  Fergus  often  thinking  in 
Dublin  light  and  shade  of  the  poignant  little  lyric  that 
enshrined  an  antique  Hellenic  friendship : 

They  told  me,   Heraclitus,  they  told  me  thoti  wert  dead, 
They  brought  me  bitter  news  to  bear  and  bitter  tears  to  shed. 
I  wept  when  I  remembered  how  often  you  and   I 
Had   tired  the   sun   with   talking  and   sent   him   down   the   sky! 

And  now  that  thou  art  lying,  my  dear  old  Carian  guest, 
A  handful   of  gray  ashes,   long,  long  ago  at   rest, 
Still   are   thy  pleasant  voices,   thy  nightingales,   awake. 
For  Death,  he  taketh   all  away,   but  these   he  cannot   take. 

Fergus  wondered  much  over  the  possible  action  of 
Lord  Strathbarra.  This  should  be  a  time  for  bold  moves, 
something  after  his  lordship's  own  heart.  His  lordship 


342  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

in  the  first  stage  of  the  trouble  came  promptly  on  the 
scene  and  arranged  for  the  transfer  of  Fergus's  brothers 
and  their  wives  and  other  disturbed  Cluainlumney 
colonists  to  his  isle  in  the  Hebrides.  Fergus  shook  his 
head  at  first  over  the  idea  of  the  rude  removal  and  the 
far  transplanting;  but  the  younger  colonists  had  bold 
hearts  and  still  bolder  imaginations.  Fergus  was  not 
convinced,  but  he  could  do  nothing  definite  or  helpful 
himself.  Often  in  the  ensuing  days  of  tension  and  toil 
he  thought  sadly  of  his  transplanted  kin  between  the  far 
island-heather  and  the  waves.  It  was  the  strangest,  wild 
est  exile  he  could  recall.  The  Norwegians  of  the  Middle 
Ages  who  bore  their  substance  and  their  song  and  their 
sagas  to  Iceland  had  more  to  cheer  them,  for  all  Lord 
Strathbarra's  kindly  heart  and  hope.  He  sighed  when  he 
thought  of  the  workers'  songs  in  the  mornings  and  the 
moonlight  dances  round  the  drooping-ash  in  the  swift 
brief  time  of  the  Promise  of  Meath. 

But  what  of  Lord  jStrathbarra  in  relation  to  the  great 
stern  struggle  of  which  the  new  Painne  an  Lae  was  to  be 
the  center?  Would  he  come  boldly  into  the  arena? 
It  was  surprising  that  he  made  no  move  and  remained 
aloof.  It  was  strangely  unlike  him. 

His  lordship  wrote  at  last.  For  some  time,  he  said, 
Fergus  and  Ireland  would  see  him  no  more.  To  settle 
the  Cluainlumney  colonists  and  set  their  hearts  at  home 
in  the  Hebrides  would  demand  thought  and  kindly  zeal. 
Again,  and  far  more  delicate  still,  he  had  to  enter  into 
correspondence  with  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  over 
sundry  points  in  his  Greek  Church  scheme,  and  one 


TRANSITION  AND  TRIAL,  343 

would  want  all  one's  mind  and  balance  for  correspond 
ence  with  a  Patriarch.  The  occasion  would  demand 
island-peace  and  remoteness. 

But  forthwith,  and  before  facing  this  great  task,  his 
lordship  said,  he  had  to  pay  a  momentous  visit  to  Paris. 
To  Fergus  he  need  make  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  he 
had  dreamed  dreams  in  regard  to  a  certain  young  lady, 
and  before  any  further  facing  of  the  great  problems  of 
life  he  must  put  his  dreams  to  the  test.  His  heart  and  his 
hopes  were  high. 

Fergus  had  heard  no  word  whatever  from  Elsie.  Her 
silence  and  the  thought  of  Lord  Strathbarra's  high  hopes 
now  set  him  into  a  brown  —  or  rather  a  gray  —  study. 
In  his  heart  he  was  confident  that  his  lordship  would  not 
succeed,  but  erratically  enough  his  already  overtaxed 
imagination  let  itself  toy  with  the  idea  of  his  lordship's 
success :  with  pictures  of  Elsie's  transfer  in  state  to  the 
Hebrides,  and  his  own  desolation.  A  light  artistic  gloom 
at  first,  it  became  a  torment  in  the  end,  almost  worse 
than  reality.  One  who  dwelt  more  with  the  actual  world 
would  have  done  something  decisive,  or  daring,  or  even 
desperate.  Fergus  did  nothing  definite,  beyond  creating 
in  his  mental  life  a  subtle  form  of  torture. 

Many  resorts  to  the  fiddle  and  the  beloved  folk-music, 
and  an  excursion  into  the  old  sagas  of  Gaeldom  —  the 
tales  of  the  Fianna  and  the  Red  Branch  —  brought  him 
back  to  himself.  The  richness  of  the  antique  character, 
the  daring  deeds  of  those  heroic  times,  the  glow  of  the 
soul  of  the  past,  reflected  in  those  ever-fresh  and  spacious 
tales,  set  him  thinking  on  himself  and  on  modern  Ireland 


344  TH£  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

generally  in  a  chastened,  salutary  way.  Ireland's  worst 
disaster  was  that  her  mind  had  shrunk,  that  as  a  whole 
she  had  lost  the  heroic  consciousness,  that  her  inner  life 
had  grown  weedy,  pessimistic  and  vexatious.  And  though 
there  was  a  bright  recovery  and  re-discovery  there  was 
a  terrible  danger  that  even  those  who  desired  to  serve 
her  would  unconsciously  lapse  in  these  days  of  so  much 
that  was  mean  and  selfish  and  querulous,  into  crude, 
combative  moods,  into  bitter  barrenness  of  nature-.  With 
out  a  sense  of  the  old  heroic  calm,  the  old  deep  joy  in 
Life  and  Nature,,  we  could  never  hope  to  till  the  Untilled 
Fields. 


AT  ATHMJMNEY 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

DIVINE  SOULS  IN  THE:  SLUMS 


change  of  circumstances  made  it 
necessary  for  Fergus  OTIagan  and 
Maeve  to  give  up  the  Dalkey  home, 
and  betake  themselves  to  modest 
quarters  in  a  city  side-street  not  very 
far  from  the  office.  The  new  haunt 
was  cramped  and  in  itself  uninviting, 
but  Maeve's  taste  made  it  agreeable 
at  the  outset  and  soon  gave  it  a  hint 
of  charm.  It  was  on  the  borders  of 
a  deep  slum  area,  and  Maeve's  spirit 
was  drawn  to  the  problems  and  the  souls  of  slum-land. 
But  before  this  happened  Fergus  made  a  discovery  that 
gave  him  food  for  wonder  and  many  hours  of  reflection. 
The  clash  and  crisis  weakened  Maeve's  health  at  first, 
and  Fergus  was  exceedingly  uneasy  about  the  removal 
from  the  scene  of  sunniness  and  charm  below  Killiney 
and  above  the  Bay.  But  she  insisted  that  scene  and 
environment  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  and  he  knew  at  any 
rate  that  she  had  a  brave  spirit  and  a  kingdom  of  thought 
and  solace  within  herself.  She  changed,  or  seemed  to 


348  THE)   PIvOUGH    AND   THK    CROSS 

change,  in  ways  that  surprised  him.  She  kept  her  mind 
to  herself  on  Church  matters  beyond  the,  for  her,  far- 
reaching  admission  after  the  trouble  over  Fainne  an  Lae : 
"  We  are  not  bound  to  believe  that  Churchmen  are  in 
variably  wise  " ;  and  again :  "  There  are  times  in  the 
history  of  Church  and  State  when  a  prime  duty  of  the 
faithful  is  to  pray  fervently  for  the  ecclesiastical  authori 
ties."  Her  ill-health,,  however,  became  ominous,  and  one 
evening  on  returning  from  the  office  Fergus  found  to 
his  great  alarm  that  she  had  fainted  away.  The  return 
to  consciousness  was  slow,  but  when  she  had  recovered 
there  was  something  in  her  mood  and  manner  that  aston 
ished  him.  It  was  a  mixture  of  serenity  and  ecstasy,  so 
far  as  he  could  describe  it.  It  was  then  that  she  confided 
to  him,  for  the  first  time,  her  mysterious  story  of  voices 
and  messages  from  beyond  the  veil,  and  of  a  sad  but 
noble  labor  that  she  knew  was  before  her.  Deep  as  was 
the  conviction  of  Fergus  as  to  the  illimitable  forces 
beyond  the  range  of  human  senses,  his  feeling  was  that 
communication  and  inspiration  took  place  not  in  the 
direct  and  more  or  less  positive  manner  which  Maeve 
suggested,  but  in  spiritual  wise  too  subtle  for  material 
description,  though  intensely  realizable  by  the  soul.  But 
he  would  not  dogmatize  even  in  his  own  mind  on  such 
an  issue,  knowing  that  normal  human  experience  is  too 
limited,  too  preoccupied  with  minor  interests,  too  much 
hypnotized  by  mundane  bias  and  tradition  for  anything 
but  partial  and  unconvincing  judgment  on  so  vast  a 
question.  Maeve's  confidences  interested  and  moved  him 
deeply,  and  brought  the  hint  of  a  new  wonder  home  to 
him. 


DIVINE  SOULS  IN  THE:  SLUMS  349 

After  a  short  time  she  was  much  in  the  slum  places, 
and  singularly  enough,  though  often  distressed  or  ap 
palled,  she  seemed  as  one  who  had  settled  down  to  her 
work  in  life  serenely.  It  gave  her  a  poise  and  joy  at 
once  unexpected  and  touching.  She  made  the  discovery 
early  that  slum-land  was  not  all  squalor  and  wretched 
ness,  but  had  elements  of  beautiful  character  and  phases 
of  most  tender  life,  and  little  oases  of  engaging  charm 
and  taste,,  though  the  picture  in  the  main  was  awful. 

Curiously,  too,  when  Miss  Alice  Lefanu  arrived  in 
Dublin  it  was  to  the  slum-lands  that  her  mind  seemed 
to  turn  most.  What  to  Fergus  was  the  unexpected, 
happened  at  a  very  early  stage  —  she  and  Maeve  appeared 
to  become  kindred  spirits.  In  Alice  Lefanu  there  had 
come  a  momentous  change,  and  Fergus  found  it  difficult 
at  first  to  reconcile  the  bygone  picture  and  the  new, 
though  the  obvious  difference  was  mainly  in  expression 
and  poise.  She  was  tall,  striking  and  well-developed 
physically;  very  graceful  in  carriage,  a  sort  of  mean 
between  the  sedate  grace  of  Maeve  and  the  nervous, 
volatile  grace  of  Elsie.  Her  features  were  of  the  cast 
known  popularly  as  Greek,  though  often  met  in  Ireland. 
In  absolute  repose  they  were  features  with  a  hint  of 
coldness,  verging  to  troubled  seriousness  in  times  of 
reverie;  which  did  her  nature  an  injustice.  When  she 
listened  (which  was  most  of  the  time)  or  when  she  spoke 
they  were  very  ruthful  and  sympathetic.  When  her 
voice  expressed  interest  or  sympathy  there  was  a  singular 
softening  of  the  eyes  and  a  curious  twitching  of  the  face, 
as  if  she  were  suffering  from  physical  pain.  Her  personal 
disposition  seemed  to  be  to  speak  very  little  as  a  rule; 


350  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE;  CROSS 

she  impressed  one  with  her  strong,  positive  Silence  — • 
Fergus  could  not  express  it  more  clearly  —  and  quiet 
reserve  power.  She  seemed  at  most  times  to  radiate 
joy  and  forgetfulness  of  self.  Fergus  felt  that  all  her 
latent  goodness  had  been  vitalized  and  made  active  at 
Point  Loma.  He  was  to  realize  it  more  deeply  in  the 
later  day  when  her  broader  work  had  begun. 

It  was  Miss  Lefanu's  intensity  of  sympathy  that  won 
the  heart  of  Maeve.  When  they  had  grown  confidential 
her  new  friend's  ideas  on  life  and  destiny,  especially  the 
philosophy  of  Reincarnation,  gave  her  an  eerie  feeling 
at  first,  a  somewhat  less  eerie  feeling  afterwards.  The 
doctrine  of  the  law  of  Karma,  philosophically  bound  up 
with  it,  she  found  somewhat  more  arresting;  the  idea 
of  unending  adjustment  of  mind  and  character  till  the 
divine  was  reached  possessed  a  certain  spaciousness  and 
momentous  zeal.  There  was  something  very  touching 
and  striking  to  her  imagination  in  Miss  Lefanu's  further 
philosophy  of  the  vital  fact  of  a  Universal  Brotherhood 
of  Humanity  which  all  mankind  must  recognize  before 
effectual  reforms  can  come ;  something  solemn  in  the  idea 
that  we  cannot  do  evil  ourselves  without  making  it  harder 
for  all  humanity  to  do  right,  nor  strive  towards  perfection 
without  making  the  pathway  a  little  clearer  for  all  the 
world.  She  had  never  before  even  considered  the  idea 
of  such  mysterious  inter-action  and  unity  amongst  all  the 
members  of  the  human  family,  and  the  theory  of  the 
power  and  action  of  mere  thought  was  strangely  new  to 
her.  She  was  incredulous  but  interested.  Miss  Lefanu's 
profound  belief  in  the  perfectibility  of  humanity,  and 
its  ultimate  recovery  of  its  own  divinity,  was  the  one  that 


DIVINE;  SOULS  IN  THE:  SLUMS  351 

appealed  to  her  most.  It  made  her  ponder  anew  on 
Christ's  teachings :  "  Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as 
your  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect."  "  Ye  are  gods." 
"  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within  you."  She  some 
times  found  herself  wondering  if  the  hitherto  vague  thing 
called  theosophy  contained  a  great  deal  of  ideal  Christ 
ianity.  The  theosophy  she  had  heard  in  London  lectures 
had  not. struck  her  in  this  way.  The  Point  Loma  theo 
sophy,  as  she  came  to  call  it,  though  in  reality  its  devotees 
were  world-wide,  appealed  to  her  for  its  wonderfully 
high  moral  code  and  its  prevailing  spirit  of  practicality. 
Its  end  was  help  and  action.  Miss  Lefanu  told  her  that 
the  international  headquarters  of  the  Universal  Brother 
hood  and  Theosophical  Society  (at  Point  Loma)  had 
several  Irish  workers.  The  organization  represented  no 
particular  creed ;  it  was  entirely  unsectarian,  and  included 
professors  of  all  faiths,  only  exacting  from  each  member 
that  large  toleration  in  the  beliefs  of  others  which  he 
desired  them  to  exhibit  towards  his  own.  Fergus  ex 
pressed  the  hope  that  all  the  Irish  workers  at  Point  Loma 
would  come  home.  They  would  give  serene  and  ennobling 
counsel  to  creed-warring  Ireland,  in  a  day  when  the  old 
leaders  tried  to  keep  the  nation  a  series  of  sectarian  con 
centration  camps ;  when  there  were  country  priests  who 
tried  to  keep  Protestants  outside  the  Gaelic  League  bran 
ches;  and  bishops  who  decided  that  it  was  a  sin  on  the 
part  of  a  Catholic  to  enter  a  Protestant  church  for  any 
purpose,  even  to  act  as  best  man  at  the  wedding  of  a 
Protestant  friend !  Maeve  was  coldly  indignant  over 
these  strictures  at  first,  but  admitted  little  by  little  that 
Ireland  was  not  yet  a  pioneer  of  toleration.  Anyhow 


352  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

with  her  deepening  spirit  of  pity  and  helpfulness  she  was 
coming  to  see  in  combativeness  a  pure  waste  of  energy 
as  well  as  a  loss  of  personal  dignity. 

Long  afterwards  in  reviewing  this  toilsome  and 
troublous  period  Fergus  was  able  to  see  a  strange  fact 
in  a  clear  light.  Alice  Lefanu  the  theosophist  had  un 
consciously  exercised  a  vitalizing  and  sweetening  effect 
upon  his  own  Christianity.  Whenever  a  conversation 
turned  on  the  tactics  of  clerics  against  Fainne  an  Lae,  or 
any  other  phase  of  ecclesiastical  aggression,  she  inter 
vened  with  a  commentary  on  some  specially  beautiful 
phase  of  Christ's  own  teaching,  particularly  where  it  bore 
upon  human  perfectibility  and  divinity,  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  within,  and  the  chanty  and  helpfulness  we  owe 
to  all  our  brethren  of  the  Race  and  the  Universe.  And 
she  wanted  to  give  an  everyday,  practical  application  to 
it  all,  as  well  as  to  all  the  humanly  helpful  philosophy  of 
the  great  Wisdom  Teachers  —  she  had  no  enthusiasm  for 
unapplied  theory.  Fergus  began  to  feel  her  resource 
and  activity  of  sympathy  a  silent  reproach  to  himself 
and  his  habit  of  speculation  and  lotus-land  excursions 
after  toil. 

He  had  already  introduced  to  Maeve  a  fearful  and 
wonderful,  but  an  intensely  human  and  genial  authority 
on  slum-land.  Mr.  Dan  Deegan  was  a  relieving  officer 
who  knew  the  deeps  and  quaintness  and  follies  and  guile 
and  twisted  human  nature  of  the  nether  Dublin  to  a 
degree  that  made  other  seekers'  knowledge  thereof  seem 
but  the  A  B  C  of  the  theme,  but  he  remained  joyous  and 
a  philosopher.  To  anything  in  the  nature  of  idealism  in 
regard  to  Dublin  a  talk  with  him  was  a  terrible  corrective ; 


DIVINE  SOULS  IN  THE;  SLUMS  353 

yet  even  as  he  chastened  he  cheered,  for  apart  from  his 
vigorous  humanity  he  knew  the  roots  and  the  remedies 
as  well  as  he  knew  his  own  home.  Fergus  thought  of 
him  as  the  great,  racy  Slum  Doctor,  who  was  cheery- 
hearted  because  he  believed  in  the  final  cure. 

Maeve  and  her  new  friend  had  many  mysterious  con 
sultations,  and  made  many  excursions  with  the  ever-alert 
and  resourceful  Dan,  and  Fergus  heard  hints  from  time 
to  time  from  busy  and  brightening  Maeve  of  novel  slum 
schemes  in  which  children  always  figured;  of  Irish 
classes,  and  musical  evenings,  and  amusing  plays,  and 
story-telling  in  houses  or  halls  in  courts  and  quarters 
near  and  remote ;  and  anon  of  more  practical  and  scien 
tific  projects  of  everyday  bearing.  Maeve  got  into  the 
habit  of  talking  pointedly  and  sedately  of  Raja  Yoga 
methods  and  possibilities  even  in  Dublin.  Air.  Dan 
Deegan  began  to  declare  that  the  great  blunder  of  the 
Gaelic  League,  which  against  his  earnest  urging  had 
always  ignored  the  hosts  of  slum-children,  was  in  the 
way  of  being  more  than  repaired,  and  things  he  had  never 
dreamed  of  would  come  to  pass  besides.  The  daily  Press 
still  looked  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  The  Dublin  that 
genteel  and  general  citizens  saw  was  as  unlovely  and  as 
anti-social  as  ever.  Preachers  in  sermons  that  had  the  fla 
vor  of  the  Middle  Ages,  spoke  now  and  then  in  awe-struck 
tones  of  mad  modern  unrest  and  of  unnamed  but  poison 
ous  heresies  and  crimes  that  were  rampant  in  the  outer 
world,  but  could  never  affect  the  faithful  and  innocent 
Irish  people.  Thus  the  old  order  ran,  while  away  in  the 
nether  and  noxious  places  women  had  indeed  begun  "  to 
think  and  act  as  Divine  Souls." 


354  TH#  PivOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

Miss  Lefanu  had  come  into  considerable  property  in 
Ireland  —  which  was  partly  the  explanation  of  her  visit 
—  and  now  she  had  decided  to  devote  it  to  educative,  and 
social  purposes.,  as  like  those  which  had  succeeded  so 
wonderfully  at  Point  Lorna  as  it  was  possible  to  compass 
in  Irish  conditions ;  in  regard  to  the  children  more  par 
ticularly.  She  had  planned  at  the  outset  a  lay  sisterhood, 
who  would  be  teachers  on  novel  lines  and  illustrative  of 
"  Raja  Yoga  "  methods  generally.  She  readily  agreed, 
of  course,  with  Fergus  that  great  as  the  work  in  the 
slums  themselves  might  be  it  could  only  be  preliminary 
and  preparatory ;  it  must  lead  in  some  way  to  the  country 
and  the  land.  She  had  thought  of  art  schools  and  art 
industries,  and  greater  projects,  between  the  city  and  the 
hills.  Already  a  slum  landlord  and  slum  publican  element 
was  alarmed  and  combative.  It  did  not  want  betterment 
or  emancipation,  for  degradation  meant  greater  "profits" ; 
and  pressure  was  being  brought  to  bear  upon  the  clergy 
to  move  against  Miss  Lefanu  on  account  of  her  theoso- 
phy:  which,  of  course,  slum  publicans  had  weighed  and 
found  wanting !  It  was  to  be  found,  however,  that  Alice 
Lefanu  was  a  character  with  no  sense  of  fear;  and 
already  the  daring  stand  of  Fainne  an  Lac  had  conduced 
to  a  certain  caution. 

The  office  work  of  Fergus  was  more  exacting  and 
strenuous  than  ever,  for  the  struggle  against  grievous 
odds  had  been  fairly  started.  Through  Maeve's  new 
friendships  and  mission,  it  came  to  pass  for  a  period  that 
in  the  evenings  and  nights  he  was  much  alone.  Unknown 
to  Maeve  and  most  other  people  an  aeon  of  life  seemed 
to  be  compressed  for  him  into  this  aloof  and  isolated 


DIVINE  SOULS  IN  THE)  SLUMS  355 

spell.  It  was  solitariness  that  came  to  be  filled  with 
meaning.  He  had  come  to  the  end  of  a  definite  stage, 
and  with  the  Boyne  Valley  break-up,  the  death  of  Father 
Murray,  the  temporary  intellectual  retreat  of  Lord  Strath- 
barra  in  the  Hebrides,  the  bolt  from  the  bishops,  the 
brooding  and  hesitancy  of  the  Maynooth  men  who  would 
like  to  be  pioneers,  and  the  alarmist  campaign  of  the 
older  clerics  far  and  near,  against  the  new  Fainnc  an  Lae, 
his  actual  life  seemed  curiously  different  from  what  it 
was  in  the  early  summer.  And  what  the  New  Stage  would 
really  mean  for  himself  personally  or  Young  Ireland  no 
man  might  venture  to  forecast.  He  had  seen  the  ending 
of  a  vivid  act  of  life's  drama,  and  the  stress  and  real 
developments  of  the  next  could  only  be  awaited  with 
expectancy  and  philosophy  and  a  due  sense  of  the  fact 
that  there  were  sure  to  be  surprises.  He  had  left  Ireland 
partly  of  necessity,  partly  because  the  spirit  of  his  youth 
was  idealistic  and  venturesome ;  he  had  no  serious  reason 
to  complain  of  fate  or  fortune  over-sea ;  but  Ireland  had 
drawn  him  back  as  a  shrine  draws  a  devotee ;  his  spirit 
had  responded  joyously  to  the  new  life  there  was.  Since 
the  coming  there  had  been  a  certain  intensity  of  action, 
much  gallant  zest,  experiment,  and  exaltation  of  heart. 
But  the  old  order  and  the  new  had  clashed,  in  the  spirit 
ual  as  well  as  the  social  realm.  And  now  he  was  alone, 
and  his  highest-hearted  comrades  were  dead,  or  scattered, 
or  mute  and  dubious.  Fortune,  great  and  generous  for 
a  spell,  had  grown  suddenly  strange  and  cold. 

But  the  real  and  insistent  problem  that  confronted  and 
perturbed  him  was  that  of  Elsie.  Why  she  remained 
silent  and  uncommunicative  since  her  flight,  was  the 


356  THE:   PLOUGH   AND   THE   CROSS 

disturbing  query  of  his  inner  life.  The  old  affectionate, 
airy,  delightful  correspondence  had  seemed  as  natural 
and  essential  in  life  as  air,  sunshine  and  reverie.  It  was 
of  the  spirit,  and  the  spirit  demanded  it.  The  absence 
of  it  now  made  days  drag,  and  life  seem  lonely  and 
unfruitful,  and  the  imagination  inert,  and  the  soul  open 
to  doubts  and  fears  that  had  never  obtruded  themselves 
before.  It  seemed  as  if  some  subtle  stay  and  harmony  in 
his  character  had  gone,  or  the  finer  essence  of  himself 
had  become  atrophied.  He  used  to  take  pride  in  the  fact 
that  his  own  and  Elsie's  idyll  was  a  delightful  proof  of 
a  delicate,  undefined  affection  which  can  make  a  Golden 
Age  in  the  everyday  world,  because  it  is  essentially  of 
the  mind,  and  has  no  touch  of  passion  or  melodrama. 
But  some  crudity  of  self  or  circumstance  had  broken  the 
spell. 

When  he  spoke  to  Maeve  on  the  silence  of  Elsie  she 
was  gracious,  but  unhelpful.  Elsie's  few  and  hurried 
notes  to  herself  threw  little  light  on  her  mind  and  motives. 
Fergus  shrank  from  saying  anything  about  Lord  Strath- 
barra's  "momentous  visit"  to  Paris,  though  it  haunted  his 
mind. 

"  You  know  Fergus,"  said  Maeve  one  evening,  "  that 
you  really  know  little  about  woman's  nature.  You  are 
too  preoccupied  with  your  own  ideas,  though  you  occa 
sionally  take  passing  notice  of  bishops  and  stars.  You 
ought  to  know  me  and  Elsie  very  well,  yet  in  some 
respects  we  're  too  deep  for  you.  You  treated  Elsie  badly 
at  Dalkey,  and  she's  so  proud  and  sensitive  —  worse 
even  than  myself  —  that  you  must  expect  elusiveness. 
Personally  I  don't  think  that  she  '11  forgive  you  for  a 


DIVINE  SOULS  IN  THE  SLUMS  357 

couple  of  years,  and  even  then  she  may  be  'distant'  with 
you.  Or  she  may  join  a  religious  order,  and  not  see 
you  at  all.  She  always  had  a  leaning  that  way,  her 
historic  literary  escapade  notwithstanding.  YQU  don't 
believe  that?  Alas,  it  shows  anew  that  you  are  'out' 
about  her  character." 

"  Oh,  come  now,"  Fergus  said,  "  this  pretense  of 
woman's  incomprehensibility  is  feminine  fiction.  And 
fiction  can  be  overdone.  Elsie  is  too  sympathetic  and 
sweet-natured  to  want  to  play  the  enigma  anyway.  I 
fear  there  's  some  terrible  explanation  of  her  silence  and 
apparent  unkindness." 

"  Don't  let  your  imagination  brood  on  it,"  replied 
Maeve,  "  Elsie  is  right  to  her  own  mind,  anyhow,  and 
that  should  be  enough  for  you.  With  your  present  for 
tunes,  or  misfortunes,  you  can't  marry  anyway.  You 
are  giving  your  imagination  too  much  to  Elsie,  and  your 
mind  too  much  to  the  paper.  Why  can't  you  become 
interested  in  a  practical  way  in  our  slum-work  and  teach 
ing?  That  would  be  good  for  you  and  us.  You  used 
to  be  slum-struck  before  Elsie  came." 

"  I  hope  to  be  full  of  it  all  later  on.  But  I  must  first 
put  the  new  Fainne  an  Lae  on  a  firm  basis.  You  know 
the  fearful  opposition,  and  you  know  how  timid  even 
some  of  our  friends  are,  and  how  even  the  official  Gaelic 
League  is  afraid  to  be  openly  identified  with  it.  But 
my  real  worry  is  about  Elsie.  If  she  would  open  her 
mind  a£  of  old,  I  'd  trouble  very  little  about  all  the 
reactionaries  and  formalists  in  Ireland." 

In  the  end,  after  many  days,  Fergus  O'Hagan  found 
himself  impelled  more  and  more  to  the  philosophy  that 


358  THE    PLOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

life's  primal  significance  is  that  of  a  great  tuition-place, 
and  that  while  the  Gleam  should  be  faithfully  followed, 
the  end  is  afar,  incalculably  far,  beyond  the  visible  and 
the  aeons,  and  the  stages  are  sacrificial  and  soul-solitary, 
though  the  solitude  is  dimly  broken  by  gleams  and  mur 
murs  of  the  Company  to  be. 

He  began  to  think  of  Elsie,  the  Boyne  Valley  work,  and 
friends  like  Mr.  Milligan,  Father  Murray,  and  Father 
Kenealy,  as  something  flashed  briefly  into  his  life  to  show 
him  —  apart  from  what  they  meant  in  and  to  themselves 
—  what  bright  and  noble  entities  of  divers  degree  are 
possible  in  actuality,  and  then  withdrawn  to  other  spheres 
remote  from  him,  but  testing  in  their  going  and  their 
loss  his  strength  of  heart  and  spirit.  He  felt  that  maybe 
the  test  in  the  long  run,  whatever  heart  and  soul  felt  now, 
would  serve  some  finer  purpose  than  even  the  old  precious 
association.  He  unfolded  in  the  new  Fainne  an  Lae  at 
this  stage  his  own  "  philosophy  of  a  worker."  Until  the 
worker  had  lost  all  things  on  which  the  heart  was  set, 
and  all  the  temporal  solaces  of  the  soul,,  and  yet  could 
feel  that  all  was  well  with  heart  and  soul  and  work,  he 
was  not  a  proved  Worker.  Maeve  declared  that  the 
"philosophy"  was  colder  than  moonlight  on  an  iceberg, 
and  that  she  was  sure  he  did  not  really  mean  it  for  his 
workaday  world. 

Nevertheless  it  began  to  possess  for  him  a  serene 
appeal  and  satisfaction.  One  had  to  crucify  the  lower 
nature  continually.  As  one  did  so  a  Master  Self,  un 
known  to  normal  consciousness,  and  indifferent  to  self 
hood  in  the  ordinary  sense,  became  dimly  but  ever  more 
and  more  realizable.  The  soul  became  more  radiantly 


DIVINE  SOULS  IN  THE  SLUMS  359 

alive  and  active,  in  more  conscious  relation  with  the 
Divinity  ruling  the  higher  reaches  of  life;  it  felt  itself 
to  be  part  of  a  grander  Identity ;  it  breathed  and  realized 
itself  in  an  atmosphere  impossible  of  access  or  conception 
if  the  lower  nature  ruled,  and  one  were  hypnotized  by 
material  or  temporary  things.  It  came  towards  its  own, 
and  ever  the  human  self  felt  a  joy  of  surrender  of  the 
things  held  in  common  esteem.  To  be  sacrificial,  lost  in 
the  great  human  Cause,  of  which  country  and  kin  were 
part,  filled  with  the  spirit  of  brotherhood  and  co-opera 
tion,  seemed  natural ;  and  movement  to  a  divine  End  in 
evitable.  Christ's  appeal  to  divine  fatherhood  and  human 
brotherhood,  His  insistence  on  the  divine  in  man  himself, 
had  always  seemed  clear,  beautiful  and  conclusive  when 
the  mind  really  dwelt  upon  it.  How  anything  could  have 
long  obscured  it  seemed  extraordinary.  Now  it  came 
home  with  a  new  appeal  and  meaning  and  was  infinitely 
satisfying  and  inspiring. 

Fergus  began  to  take  the  Day's  Work  philosophically, 
and  to  treat  the  opposition  to  Fainne  an  Lae,  and  the  toil 
some  labor  for  that  light-bringing  and  lightning-conduct 
ing  journal — both  of  which  seemed  momentous  facts  to  his 
friends  —  as  a  matter  of  course.  The  trouble  was  that 
after  many  hours'  work  one  grew  physically  exhausted, 
but  dawn  and  early  sunlight  brought  magic  once  more. 

At  last  Lord  Strathbarra  wrote  again.  His  Paris  visit 
had  been  in  vain,  and  not  till  now  had  he  the  heart  to 
mention  it,  though  some  explanation  of  his  protracted 
silence  was  due  to  Fergus.  Perhaps  Fergus  could  not 
understand  how  much  his  dream  of  a  certain  young  lady 
had  dominated  him.  But  then  her  vividness  and  liberality 


360  THE)    PIvOUGH    AND    THE    CROSS 

of  mind  on  theological  questions  were  unique  in  his 
experience.  To  read  the  great  theologians  by  her  side 
in  the  Hebrides,  and  discuss  their  heights  and  deeps, 
would  be  a  wonderful  experience.  Alas  for  human  hopes  ! 
He  would  solace  his  mind  and  heart  by  re-reading  the 
full  story  and  the  letters  of  Athanasius.  He  had  found  it 
the  best  available  comfort  in  any  crisis  of  life.  It  would 
also  hearten  him  for  the  great  task  and  the  strenuous 
stand  that  would  mark  the  not  far  future  —  the  day 
when  Ireland  and  Rome  and  Europe  would  look  wonder- 
ingly  on  the  part  in  the  soul-struggle  of  the  age  played 
in  far  Strathbarra  in  the  Celtic  Sea.  .  .  . 

To  Fergus  Elsie's  silence  was  now  more  bewildering 
than  ever.  But  in  the  tension  and  the  toil  of  daily  life 
she,  like  the  Boyne  Valley  days  and  friends,  came  gradu 
ally  to  appear  as  a  dream  that  was  too  delicate  for  "  the 
rough  tuition-place  called  the  world."  It  was  only  in  the 
twilight-times  and  reveries  of  the  spirit  that  she  and  they 
became  real  and  radiant  once  again. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 


A    CRISIS    OF    HEART   AND 


S   DEDUCTION 


BEGIN  to  see,"  Fergus  said  to  Maeve  one 
evening,  "  that  the  sudden  flight  of  Elsie 
and  her  extraordinary  change  of  attitude 
towards  myself  were  all  for  the  best." 

A  pathetic  expression  came  into  Maeve's 
face. 

"  I  've  been  afraid  of  this  for  some  little 
time,"  she  said.  "  I  know  what  you  mean. 
I  saw  it  would  be  just  the  irony  of  things 
that  you  'd  go  and  fall  in  love  with  Alice. 
If  she  listens  to  you  —  as  I  fear  she  may 

—  it  will  take  her  mind  off  our  schemes  and  complicate 

matters  hopelessly." 

"What  put  so  astonishing  an  idea  into  your  head?" 

asked   Fergus.      "  I   have   a   deep   admiration    for   Miss 

Lefanu   and   her  work,   but   I   am   as   likely   to    fall   in 

love   with   the   spirit   of   Antigone   or   Deirdre   as   with 

her." 

"  Oh,  you  want  to  break  it  gently  to  me,  do  you  ?  " 

said  Maeve.     "  Mind  you,  I  don't  blame  you  altogether. 

Alice  is  a  beautiful  character  —  too  good   for  you,  of 


362  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

course  —  and  she  has  returned  into  your  life  at  a  dan 
gerously  psychological  '  moment.'  You  've  been  badly 
hurt  over  Elsie ;  I  '11  admit  that  you  have  been  on  the 
whole  badly  treated  —  though  you  began  the  bad  treat 
ment  —  and  that  you  've  suffered  a  great  deal.  So  it 's 
your  time  of  real  peril.  When  a  man  of  your  tempera 
ment,  or  indeed  almost  any  man,  is  just  coming  through 
an  agony  about  one  woman  he  's  fairly  in  the  mood  to 
give  his  wounded  heart  to  another,  especially  if  she 's 
attractive  and  sympathetic." 

"  Women  are  wonderfully  fond  of  theorizing  about 
hearts  - 

"And  are  generally  right.  It 's  their  metier,"  said 
Maeve.  "  But  in  a  case  like  this  very  little  theory  or 
penetration  is  required  —  the  procedure  has  almost  the 
regularity  of  a  law.  Yet  if  only  you  could  be  firm  and 
endure  your  pain  for  some  time  longer  you  would  recover 
and  be  safe.  It 's  at  the  crisis  that  the  danger  intervenes. 
I  fear,  however,  that  with  Alice  on  the  scene  continually, 
and  you  unable  to  get  away  owing  to  the  battle  for 
the  paper,  the  story  can  end  only  in  one  way.  Is 
there  any  chance  at  all  of  your  being  able  to  take  a 
holiday?" 

"Not  the  slightest,"  replied  Fergus.  "The  situation 
is  such  that  I  must  toil  continually  for  many  a  day  to 
come.  But  I  assure  you  that  your  concern  is  very  amus 
ing  to  me  in  the  circumstances.  Your  fear  is " 

"Are  you  sure  that  you  are  not  deceiving  me,  or  your 
self,  or  both  of  us  ?  "  asked  Maeve  critically.  "  I  've 
noticed  your  attitude  to  Alice  of  late,  and  it  has  been 


A    CRISIS    OF    HEART  363 

suspiciously  considerate  and  attentive  —  for  you  are  gen 
erally  both  heedless  and  thoughtless  in  regard  to  your 
women  friends;  you  have  none  of  the  alert  and  kindly 
little  virtues  that  they  like.  That  you  are  in  any  way 
popular  with  them  is  a  striking  proof  of  their  good 
nature." 

"  Thank  you  very  much,"  said  Fergus  ironically.  "  But 
your  wild  little  theory  prevented  me  from  saying  what  I 
started  to  say  about  Elsie.  I  've  been  slowly  coming  to 
certain  conclusions  which  I  '11  tell  you.  But  first  of  all 
another  matter,  bearing  in  a  way  upon  them.  I  had  a 
letter  from  Terence  O'Connellan  today,  and  he  wanted  to 
know  why  I  've  been  '  such  a  fool '  as  not  to  have  gone 
over  after  the  crisis.  Now  my  old  friend  Stanley  Curran 
has  left  his  staff  —  positively  driven  out  of  London 
through  racked  nerves  and  disgust  over  quarrels  with  his 
wife  — •  and  Terence  asked  me  to  take  his  place,  a  pleas 
antly  literary  one.  He  mentioned  Stanley's  case  and  his 
wife's  as  a  terrible  illustration  of  the  peculiar  matrimonial 
tragedy  over  which  he  has  so  often  wept  in  print  —  con 
stant  clash  and  trouble,  and  life  gone  awry,  through  no 
obvious  fault  in  either  party,  and  sterling  affectionate 
qualities  in  each " 

"  You  want  to  lead  me  off  the  track,"  interrupted 
Maeve.  "All  this  is  very  remote  from  Elsie." 

"  Wait  a  moment/'  he  said.  "  It  set  me  thinking  of 
the  astonishing  amount  of  married  unhappiness  amongst 
the  literary  friends  I  've  had,  though  so  far  as  I  could 
see  they  were  honorable  and  affectionate  men.  Poor 
Stanley  Curran's  case  was  the  worst.  He  drifted  into 
marriage  in  a  youthful,  hopeful,  idealistic  way  before  he 


364  THE;  PLOUGH  AND  THK  CROSS 

knew  the  real  bent  of  his  own  mind,  and  though  he  got 
a  good  wife  —  who,  however,  did  not  understand  him 
though  very  positive  herself  that  she  did  —  his  career 
was  warped  and  spoiled.  With  a  shy,  dreamy,  literary 
temperament,  though  a  keen  mind,  any  roughness  and 
crudeness  put  him  horribly  out  of  tune,  and  his  life  after 
marriage  was  mostly  roughness.  His  mind  got  out  of 
the  right  atmosphere,  and  really  never  flourished." 

"  Bad  enough,"  said  Maeve,  "  but  I  'd  like  to  hear  the 
wife's  story." 

"  I  heard  it  several  times  from  both  him  and  her," 
replied  Fergus.  "  Her  version  varied.  It  was  black, 
very  gray,  light  gray,  and  lily-white,  according  to  her 
moods.  His  was  consistent.  He  said  that  a  wife  in  his 
experience  was  a  dual  personality.  One  was  brave,  affec 
tionate,  sacrificial,  sunny-tempered,  helpful ;  the  other 
was  nerve-vexed,  combative,  suspicious,  vexatious  in  a 
hundred  small  ways,  and  with  a  maddening  capacity  for 
piling  up  purely  imaginary  grievances.  One  was  a  minis 
tering  spirit,  the  other  had  a  fearful  capacity  for  arousing 
the  worst  in  her  husband  and  proclaiming  with  an  almost 
delirious  joy  that  this  worst  was  the  whole  character. 
She  was  April,  Saint  and  Scorpion.  It  is  an  amazing  and, 
on  the  whole,  a  strangely  pathetic  story.  I  have  been 
thinking  of  it  all  today,  and  of  other  stories  not  quite  so 
depressing,  but  depressing  enough  in  all  conscience.  I 
found  myself  wondering  if  it  were  really  possible  that 
I  and  Elsie  could  ever  have  been  thus,  and  it  was  an 
awful  thought.  Now  as  things  stand  Elsie  remains  a 
beautiful  ideal.  There  's  no  danger  of  any  such  disaster 
or  deterioration." 


A    CRISIS    OF    HEART  365 

"  You  are  talking  extravagant  nonsense,  Fergus,"  said 
Maeve.  "  No  man  was  ever  frightened  from  marriage 
by  the  mistakes  or  sufferings  of  other  men." 

"  Nor  would  I  be,  I  dare  say.  But  Elsie  has  put  herself 
as  far  from  my  life  as  fairyland,  and  I  'm  simply  pointing 
to  the  possession  of  the  ideal  as  a  sad  sort  of  satisfaction. 
The  other  things  I  've  been  thinking  over  are  nearer  to 
life,  at  least  some  of  them.  To  bring  Elsie  into  the  grim 
and  grinding  circumstances  into  which  we  are  thrown 
would  be,  of  course,  unthinkable,  and  'tis  a  strange  coinci 
dence  that  she  renounced  me  just  as  the  crash  was  coming. 
'Tis  stranger  still  that  I  have  not  her  sympathy  or 
encouragement  in  this  trial-time  above  all  times.  It 
almost  seems  as  if  it  were  designed  that  I  should  have 
nothing  sweet  or  tender  —  even  you  are  preoccupied  — 
to  draw  me  away  even  in  thought  from  the  struggle,  that 
I  Ve  simply  to  go  on  with  it  grimly  and  single-minded, 
and  so  be  in  the  mood  to  make  the  best  of  it.  I  may 
come  up  with  Elsie  again  in  another  star,  where  there 
shall  be  no  vexing  and  dividing  problems." 

"  Somewhat  remote  comfort,"  said  Maeve. 

"  It  all  depends  on  the  point  of  view,  on  what  one 
actually  believes,"  he  answered.  "  The  real  attitude  of 
some  avowedly  religious-minded  people  to  the  question 
of  immortality  is  a  puzzle  to  me.  They  do  not  act  by  any 
means  as  if  they  were  sure  of  it.  I  have  no  doubt  about 
it  myself,  but  I  believe  that  we  may  pass  through  myriad 
further  evolutions  after  the  human  change  we  call  death. 
Convinced  on  the  subject  of  immortality  it  is  illogical  to 
be  impatient  about  gaining  the  ideal  here.  We  can  afford 
to  be  calm." 


366  THi;   PLOUGH    AND   THE}   CROSS 

Maeve  shook  her  head  slowly,  in  a  dubious  but  not 
unfriendly  way. 

"  You  used  to  be  very  full  of  fairyland,"  she  said. 
"  Now  you  seem  to  wade  through  a  place  of  perpetual 
snow,  with  no  comfort  but  starlight.  That  is  to  say, 
except  when  Alice's  theories  appeal  to  your  imagination. 
Yet  without  human  cheer  and  a  touch  of  fairyland  you 
are  likely  to  droop  and  perish.  I  wonder  what  Elsie 
would  think  of  it  all." 

"  I  have  not  the  heart  to  try  to  find  out,"  replied 
Fergus.  "  I  may  know  —  in  the  other  star." 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 


SLUMS,  THE  FAIRIES,  AND  THE  MOONIJT  SANDS 
BY  THE  SEA 


.ERGUS  O'HAGAN,  having  settled  his  phil 
osophy  of  Work  and  Life,  resolved  that 
there    should   be    no    more    ploughing   of 
the   desert-sands   of   speculation   and   idle 
brooding.      Then    literary   projects    called 
invitingly   to   his    imagination,    but    these, 
too,   he   put   away   as   luxurious   dreams. 
He  determined  that  he  would  give  his  evenings 
unremittingly    to    helping    in    the    great,    quiet, 
ordered  work  of  Maeve  and  her  friends. 

Maeve  had  suddenly  appeared  to  grow  un- 
wontedly  joyous,  and  smiled  sedately  and  then  mused 
for  a  little  while  when  he  told  her  of  his  determina 
tion.  She  said  there  had  been  a  rally  of  new  helpers 
of  late,  even  certain  ladies  of  the  Gaelic  League  had 
become  mildly  interested,  and  another  very  distinguished 
and  beautiful  lady  had  decided  to  throw  in  her  lot  with 
them  permanently;  Alice's  genius  and  Calif  ornian  ex 
perience  gave  promise  of  carrying  the  work  to  a  stage 
quite  -undreamt  of  at  the  outset.  There  were  mysterious 
consultations  between  Maeve  and  Miss  Lefanu,  and 
Fergus  was  asked  if  he  would  attend  at  a  certain  center 


368  THE  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

a  couple  of  evenings  later  and  tell  fairy  stories  to  a  great 
gathering  of  children.  He  eagerly  agreed,  for  this  was 
one  of  the  things  he  could  do  joyfully  and  without  effort, 
and  he  felt  ashamed  that  he  had  not  made  a  move  before. 

It  was  a  lovely  night  of  autumn,  and  as  he  went  down 
to  the  place  of  the  gathering  the  light  of  the  harvest 
moon  and  the  stars  over  the  squalor  of  Dublin  slum 
streets  set  his  imagination  working,  and  the  most  enjoy 
able  of  the  stories  was  fantasy  with  a  moral,  moon  and 
stars  and  Dublin  children  and  tenements  being  made 
acquainted  in  a  fashion  that  diverted  and  astonished  the 
young  folk.  Fergus  became  so  interested  himself  that 
his  difficulty  was  to  stop. 

He  had  seen  Maeve  in  the  building  at  an  early  stage, 
but  as  the  merry  gathering  broke  up  there  was  no  sign 
of  her  anywhere.  He  paused  in  the  street  outside,  and 
then  reflected  that  she  had  possibly  gone  elsewhere,  as 
there  were  generally  several  night  musters  these  times. 

A  hand  was  laid  on  his  shoulders  and  a  laughing 
voice  said : 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,  I  see  that  your  imagination  is  just 
as  reckless  and  fantastic  as  ever." 

Fergus  turned  in  sheer  amazement.  Elsie  O'Kennedy 
stood  before  him  —  face,  eyes,  brows,  tresses  and  all, 
seeming  to  laugh  in  concert  as  on  the  morning  when  she 
suddenly  appeared  in  the  editorial  room  of  Fainne  an  Lae, 
and  when  he  had  pictured  her  as  the  Spirit  of  Laughter. 

Fergus  thought  of  so  many  things  to  say  that  he  could 
utter  none  of  them  for  the  moment  though  his  face 
looked  several  of  them. 

"  You  'd  better  come  along,  Man  of  the  Golden  Mists 


THE;  SUJMS  AND  THE  FAIRIES  369 

—  and  the  Gray/'  said  Elsie.  "  If  the  illustrious  ro- 
mancist  who  played  with  the  stars  tonight  is  seen  stand 
ing  with  that  bewildered  look  before  a  mere  girl,  he  '11 
simply  lose  his  reputation." 

"  I  'm  not  sure  that  I  'm  not  playing  with  the  stars 
still,  or  that  the  moon  is  not  playing  with  me,"  said 
Fergus,  as  they  walked  onward.  "  If  you  are  real,  how 
on  earth  did  you  come  here,  where  have  you  been,  and 
why  have  you  taken  no  notice  of  my  existence  for  the 
past  —  couple  of  centuries  ?  " 

"  No  apparent  notice,  you  mean,  Fergus  O'Hagan. 
It  is  not  so  easy  to  get  rid  of  illusions.  In  point  of  fact, 
you  didn't  deserve  to  have  any  notice  taken  of  you,  for 
you  never  wrote  to  me  when  your  moonshiny  and  friv 
olous  paper  was  come  down  upon  by  the  bishops.  I  read 
of  it  first  in  a  Paris  journal,  and  very  cross  I  was  that 
I  had  not  got  first-hand  information." 

"Considering  that  I  had  already  written  about  a 
hundred  letters  which  you  had  thrown,  I  suppose,  in  the 
waste-paper  basket  of  La  Vie  Domestique " 

"  I  was  communing  with  my  soul,"  said  Elsie,  "  and 
a  very  shadowed  and  self-accusing  soul  it  was.  And  the 
idea  of  you  being  so  disturbed  because  I  did  not  write 
by  every  post " 

"  By  any  post,"  corrected  Fergus. 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,  you  talk  of  kindred  spirits,  union 
of  souls,  and  all  that.  Fancy  a  spirit  being  upset  by  a 
matter  of  a  few  hundred  miles  of  space,  or  looking  for 
solace  in  a  few  sheets  of  hieroglyphics.  Why,  you  were 
a  mere  materialist." 


370  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 

"  Then  I  've  improved  of  late,  for  I  gave  up  writing 
or  expecting  letters." 

"  That  is  simply  because  you  Ve  grown  cold-hearted 
and  do  not  believe  in  '  kindred  spirits/  "  retorted  Elsie. 

"  Well,  kind  spirit,"  said  Fergus,  "  I  suppose  you 
just  glided  through  the  air  tonight  for  a  little  change 
from  Paris.  Please  don't  vanish  till  I  have  an  oppor 
tunity  of  asking  you  several  questions." 

"  I  've  been  in  Dublin  all  day,"  replied  Elsie,  "  but 
you  were  so  engrossed  in  your  impossible  office,  and  by 
all  accounts  so  unapproachable,  that  I  kept  away.  Besides, 
Maeve  and  I  thought  that  we  'd  have  a  little  surprise  for 
you,  just  to  celebrate  your  effort  to  bring  fairyland  to 
the  slums." 

"  I  noticed  that  Maeve  was  rather  hilarious  of  late," 
said  Fergus.  ''And  now  the  mystery  is  solved.  Ye 
have  been  conspiring.  But  your  coolness,  Elsie  O'Ken- 
nedy,  in  returning  to  Dublin  and  being  here  a  day  without 
my  knowledge  is  simply  —  characteristic." 

"  I  was  afraid  that  I  might  interfere  with  your  ima 
gination  if  I  showed  myself  before  the  story-telling. 
You  might  have  mixed  up  the  sta'r-dwellers  and  the 
Dublin  Corporation.  Besides  I  was  doubtful  of  the  re 
ception  I  'd  get  if  you  had  fair  notice.  You  've  been 
making  some  grim  reflections  on  destiny  and  other 
mysterious  things  in  your  cloud-sweeping  paper  of  late. 
The  best  way  was  to  take  you  by  surprise." 

"As  you  have  taken  Dublin.  But  please  do  not  let 
your  going  be  so  dramatic  as  on  the  last  occasion.  We 
could  not  bear  two  such  shocks  in  a  lifetime." 

"  I  don't  propose  to  go  back  at  all.     I  want  Ireland 


THE:  sivUMS  AND  THE:  FAIRIES  371 

as  well  as  other  folk.  Maeve's  slum-ardor  made  me 
ashamed  and  envious.  And  besides,  incidentally,  I  want 
to  shake  up  some  people  —  Golden  mists  would  appear 
to  be  getting  gray." 

"  There  will  be  a  change  —  with  '  Deirdre  '  between 
us  and  the  slums  and  other  outposts  of  the  Dublin  Devil." 

"  Fergus  O'Hagan,"  said  Elsie,  when  they  reached 
O'Connell  Street,  "  I  can't  control  my  imagination  after 
those  tantalizing  stories  of  yours,  and  I  simply  can't 
go  under  a  roof  just  yet.  And  Maeve  won't  be  home 
till  later.  I  'm  dying  to  see  the  Bay  and  Killiney  and 
the  mountains  by  moonlight  again.  But  I  suppose  Dalkey 
is  too  far  at  this  hour  —  we  'd  have  to  walk  back.  And 
the  old  scene  might  be  saddening  after  all;  though  not 
nearly  so  much  as  a  sight  of  poor  old  Cluainlumney 
would  be."  . 

"  We  'd  get  a  glorious  picture  from  the  strand  at 
Merrion  or  Sandymount,"  replied  Fergus,  "  and  either 
is  quickly  reached.  Binn  Eadar,  '  the  heathered  hill 
of  Howth  '  across  the  water,  Killiney  Hill,  and  the  Dublin 
Mountains,  look  soft-toned  and  enchanting  by  moonlight. 
Tis  all  simply  a  wonderland."  .  .  . 

The  electric  car  seemed  to  speed  with  a  music  of 
its  own  to  the  sea.  At  Sandymount  strand  where  they 
alighted  it  had  reached  enchantment.  Elsie's  airiness 
suddenly  changed  to  a  gentle  and  delicate  seriousness. 

The  tide  was  far  out.  They  walked  slowly  over  the 
smooth,  sandy  expanse  towards  the  waters. 

"  Perhaps  'tis  as  well,"  said  Elsie,  stopping  and  looking 
south,  towards  Killiney  Hill,  "  just  as  well  that  we  did 
not  go  straight  to  the  old  spot.  At  this  distance  it  has 


372  TH£  PLOUGH  AND  TH£  CROSS 

a  wonderful  shaded  beauty,  and,  though  really  near, 
a  romantic  remoteness.  So  'tis  just  like  the  events  — 
that  past  of  ours  itself." 

"  'Tis  curious  to  talk  of  it  already  as  a  '  past,'  "  said 
Fergus,  "  and  yet  truly  it  seems  to  be  part  of  a  Long 
Ago." 

Elsie  looked  back  over  the  moonlit  sands  to  the  shore 
and  the  lights  and  the  shaded,  lovely  background  of  the 
hills. 

"  How  easily  one  escapes  from  Dublin  to  enchant 
ment  !  "  she  said,  "  but  how  far  is  poor  old  Dublin  itself 
from  it !  " 

"  Dublin  is  just  like  mankind,"  replied  Fergus. 
"  Mankind  only  believes  in  dreamy  moments  that  the 
Golden  Age  is  possible,  forgetting  that  it  is  in  its  own 
heart  and  soul  all  the  time,  and  it  has  only  to  do  a 
certain  regulating  of  the  outer  things  and  details  of  the 
world  to  give  that  Golden  Age  scope  and  play.  God  has 
provided  it  with  all  the  great  essentials  already." 

"  Here  by  the  moonlit  sea/'  said  Elsie,  as  they  moved 
nearer  to  the  waters,  "  the  Golden  Age  would  really 
seem  to  have  come.  There  are  no  vexing  problems  at 
all  —  just  pure  beauty  and  ecstasy.  Even  you,"  she 
added  smiling,  "  do  not  feel  like  upbraiding  destiny  — 
or  myself." 

"  Not  in  the  least  degree,"  he  answered  laughing. 
"  Not  so  very  long  ago,  I  could  have  made  all  sorts  of 
complaints  in  regard  to  you,  and  I  could  have  asked  a 
hundred  questions  about  things  and  thoughts  and  moods 
since  we  were  last  together ;  but  I  've  been  subduing 
personalism.  And  anyhow  now  that  you  are  here  the 


THE   SLUMS  AND   THE   FAIRIES  373 

indictment  and  the  questions  are  gone.  There  is  some 
thing  so  restful  and  satisfying  in  life  that  it  almost  seems 
anti-climax  to  use  the  material  organs  of  speech.  All 
the  same  it  adds  to  the  charm  to  hear  you  speaking, 
just  as  the  voice  of  the  sea  harmonizes  with  the  moon- 
light." 

"  Dreamer  ! ."  said  Elsie  laughing.  "  You  might  have 
been  living  in  the  moon  of  late  months,  instead  of  an 
agitated  Ireland,  and  probably  a  still  more  agitated  Ireland 
before  you." 

"When  you  come  to  think  of  it,"  he  replied,  "  the  great 
Ireland  is  in  ourselves,  and  it  is  full  of  beauty,  divine 
activity  and  boundless  hope.  The  outer  Ireland,  agitated 
or  stagnant,  is  something  incidental  to  keep  our  souls  in 
training." 

They  walked  slowly  up  and  down  over  the  moonlit 
sands  by  the  waters. 

"  You  are  very.philosophic,"  said  Elsie.  "  You  betray 
no  curiosity  as  to  why  I  went  away,  why  I  remained  so 
stubbornly  silent,  and  why  I  returned  in  this  erratic 
fashion." 

"  I  would  not  think  of  associating  yourself  and  ex 
planations  even  in  the  sober  daylight.  Explanations  are 
for,  and  of,  the  ordinary.  The  subtle  in  Life  and  Woman 
is  to  be  accepted  as  we  accept  poetry." 

"  I  '11  think  over  that  answer  tomorrow,  and  see  if  it 
is  complimentary  to  me  personally.  The  '  Philosophy  of 
a  Worker  '  was  not,  though  noble  in  principle.  I  took 
it  to  myself,  and  very  much  to  heart.  I  said  '  Know  Elsie 
O'Kennedy  by  these  presents  that  Fergus  O'Hagan  puts 


374  TH3  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 

you  outside  the  pale  of  his  interests.'  Perhaps  you  '11 
say  that  the  '  philosophy  '  was  the  expression  of  a  mood, 
not  a  conviction." 

"  Like  your  chariness  in  the  way  of  letter-writing," 
said  Fergus.  "  It  was  a  conviction,  however ;  but  you 
were  wrong  in  supposing  I  meant  to  put  you  outside  the 
pale  of  my  interests." 

"  Well,  I  '11  tell  you  all  about  myself,"'  said  Elsie  in 
serious  wise.  "  I  was  infinitely  disgusted  with  myself 
for  going  away  in  that  absurd  fashion.  Yet  I  felt  also 
that  I  had  done  right.  Then  the  spell  of  what  you  call 
New  Ireland,  though  so  many  old  traits  burst  out  in  it, 
had  deeply  affected  me.  I  knew  that  I  wanted  Ireland 
with  all  my  heart.  But  I  was  greatly  agitated  within 
myself.  Your  mad  people  in  the  Boyne  Valley  and  your 
cloud-sweeping  self  bewildered  me.  I  did  not  know  where 
we  were  in  regard  to  each  other.  We  might  take  our 
selves  too  seriously,  or  we  might  not  take  each  other 
half  seriously.  I  wondered  how  the*  old  golden  mean 
had  existed  so  long.  Now  where  exactly  am  I  drifting?  " 

''  To  fairyland,"  suggested  Fergus. 

"  I  wanted  to  work  like  other  people  in  Ireland,"  con 
tinued  Elsie.  "  I  also  wanted  to  help  you.  But  I  felt 
if  I  came  back  I  might  hinder  you.  We  might  be 
come  foolishly  sentimental,  and  I  knew  it  would  not  do 
in  our  case,  it  would  mean  a  lapse  from  the  old  charm, 
a  departure  from  the  old  fairyland.  I  was  sure,  though 
I  could  not  explain  it,  that  there  must  be  for  us  a  more 
delightful  relation.  Your  '  Philosophy  of  a  Worker ' 
showed  me  exactly  what  I  meant,  though  in  one  way  I 
could  not  follow  it  or  agree  with  it.  It  seemed  exclusive 


THE   SLUMS  AND  THE   FAIRIES  375 

and  cold,  to  bar  out  tenderness,  and  beautiful  comrade 
ship,  such  as  ours  has  been." 

"  One  cannot  explain  everything  on  paper,"  said 
Fergus,  "  and  there  has  always  been  such  mental  and 
spiritual  harmony  between  us  that  I  think  of  our  minds 
as  one." 

"  I  don't  think  that  you  can  explain,  or  that  I  can  ex 
plain,  the  situation  at  all,"  said  Elsie.  "  I  '11  give  it  up 
and  let  time  explain  and  test  it.  We  can  all  work  toge 
ther  anyway  —  it  does  not  seem  that  we  can  give  much 
thought  to  ourselves  for  many  a  day ;  the  struggle  before 
yourself  is  stupendous,  and  with  Maeve  and  your  won 
derful  Irish-American  friend  in  the  slums  it  can't  be 
'  roses,  roses  all  the  way '  with  me  either " 

"  You  can't  be  serious  about  slum-work,"  he  inter 
rupted,  "  though  you  may  do  very  graceful  things  for 
other  parts  of  the  scheme  —  the  art-work  center  they 
propose  at  Rathfarnham,  for  instance.  Actual  slum-work 
would  be  too  painful  for  you." 

"  More  of  your  moonshiny  view  of  the  feminine  char 
acter,"  replied  Elsie  gaily.  "  We  shall  see.  I  have  craved 
some  such  labor  for  years.  The  thought  of  bringing  the 
children  towards  sweetness  and  light  is  glorious.  But 
Dublin's  odious  slum-lands  and  the  lovely,  empty,  wasted 
Boyne  Valley  separated  by  so  short  a  space !  —  isn't  it 
an  awful  irony?  " 

"  Ireland  is  slowly  waking  up,  and  brave,  human  deeds 
will  be  done.  She  will  come  to  think  less  of  her  great 
ruins  and  more  of  her  great  riches." 

"  Our  Irish-American  friend,  for  all  her  reserve  and 
sympathy,  has  astonishing  force  of  character,"  said  Elsie 


376  TH£  PLOUGH  AND  THE:  CROSS 


after  a  pause.  "  I  wonder  she  confines  herself  to  nether 
Dublin,  as  you  call  it." 

"  You  will  find  her,  I  think,  in  the  other  slums  in  due 
time  —  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  ones  of  which  Ireland 
has,  alas,  so  many." 

"  Have  you  set  about  manufacturing  a  golden  halo  for 
her  yet?"  asked  Elsie  archly. 

"  No,"  he  answered.  "  I  cast  away  the  apparatus  and 
materials  for  ever  when  I  had  given  the  final  touches  to 
my  chef  d'ceuvre  —  in  the  Boyne  Valley." 

"  I  heard  one  evening  from  Maeve  in  the  Boyne  Valley 
that  our  friend  had  daring  and  explosive  theories,  and 
that  one  of  her  ideas  was  an  anti-Hell-Fire  '  campaign.' 
Maeve  was  solemn  about  her  then." 

"  Like  myself,"  explained  Fergus,  "  when  she  returned 
to  our  strange  transition-Ireland  she  found  realities  and 
portents  that  upset  pre-conceived  notions  altogether.  She 
found  one  fearsome  hell  in  Dublin,  and  she  decided  that 
while  An  t-Athair  O'Muinneog,  in  the  cloistral  calm  of 
Maynooth,  could  philosophize  on  the  other,  she  would  try, 
for  a  start,  to  give  the  children  of  the  Dublin  hell  some 
taste  and  sight  of  heaven.  But  'tis  work  for  apostles 
or  gods,  not  tender  women,  unless  the  like  of  Catherine 
of  Siena  or  Joan  of  Arc  can  be  born  again  ;  for  the 
degradation  of  Dublin  is  beyond  all  telling.  It  is  an  awful 
satire  on  our  fine  theories  about  Irish  goodness  and  spirit 
uality  —  I  try  to  think  it  is  not  Ireland  at  all." 

"  Maeve's  evolution  was  a  revelation  and  a  call  to 
me,"  continued  Elsie,  growing  serious  again.  "  So  was 
your  '  Philosophy/  as  I  Ve  told  you.  We  can  come  to 
nothing  unless  there  is  an  ideal  for  which  the  personal 


THE  SLUMS  AND  THK  FAIRIES  377 

% 
self   will   be   willingly   sacrificed    if   need   be.      I    felt   at 

last  that  we  were  all  one  in  heart  and  aim." 

"  I  knew  that  long  ago/'  said  Fergus. 

"But  —  I  may  as  well  make  a  full  confession  —  your 
'  Philosophy '  had  so  lonely  a  side  that  —  well,  I  felt 
a  little  cheering  up  would  do  you  no  harm.  When  I 
reflected  I  did  not  see  why  serene  devoteclness  to  Ireland 
should  not  begin  with  you." 

"A  sort  of  after-thought  —  the  inevitable  postscript," 
suggested  Fergus,  for  whom  life  had  become  airy  and 
radiant.  He  thought  it  wonderful  that  just  as  he  felt 
he  had  suppressed  his  own  heart,  and  had  determined 
to  work  wholly  for  Cause  and  Kin,  Elsie  had  come  back 
rilled  with  the  same  ideal,  but  also  in  the  mood  to  be,  as 
of  old,  a  heart  befriending  spirit  to  himself. 

"  Of  course  you. jump  to  the  conclusion  that  the  post 
script  is  the  most  important,"  responded  Elsie  in  answer 
to  his  last  remark. 

"  It  always  is  in  a  woman's  case,"  he  said,  "  and  you 
are  delightfully  womanly  first,  last  and  all  the  time." 

'''  You  spoke  a  while  ago  of  the  outer  Ireland  as  some 
thing  to  keep  our  souls  in  training.  Whatever  the  '  train 
ing  '  before  us  may  be,  an  hour  like  this  on  the  moonlit 
sands  gives  us  heart  for  ordeals  and  hope  for  miracles," 
said  Elsie  softly. 

"  It  makes  us  realize  that  even  nether  Dublin  is  small," 
said  Fergus.  "  It  tells  us  that  Ireland  can  be  divinely 
recreated  if  she  has  the  will.  And  it  fills  us  with  the 
feeling  that  affection  and  beauty  are  boundless." 

They  turned  to  walk  slowly  towards  Merrion  over 
the  moonlit  sands  by  the  sea. 


378  THE:  PLOUGH  AND  THE  CROSS 


We  have  reached  the  end  of  a  long  stage.  Perhaps 
we  lingered  over-long,  with  the  times  of  hope  and  idyll, 
but  the  temptation  was  great.  Had  our  task  been  one  of 
pure  invention  it  would  have  been  easy  to  make  the  course 
more  sensational  and  picturesque.  But  we  were  con 
cerned  with  very  real  life  —  its  inner  stress  and  its  outer 
movement.  Another  day,  and  in  a  further  story,  we  hope 
to  follow  the  later  fortunes  of  our  friends  in  the  deepening 
social  and  spiritual  drama  of  their  new  Ireland. 

THE  END 


There  is  no  Religion  Higher  than  Truth 


THE     UNIVERSAL     BROTHERHOOD 
AND    THEOSOPHICAL    SOCIETY 


Established  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  of  the  earth 
and   all   creatures 


OBJECTS 

This  BROTHERHOOD  is  a  part  of  a  great  and  universal 
movement  which  has  been  active  in  all  ages. 

This  Organization  declares  that  Brotherhood  is  a  fact  in 
Nature.  Its  principal  purpose  is  to  teach  Brotherhood,  demon 
strate  that  it  is  a  fact  in  Nature  and  make  it  a  living  power  in 
the  life  of  humanity. 

Its  subsidiary  purpose  is  to  study  ancient  and  modern  religions, 
science,  philosophy  and  art ;  to  investigate  the  laws  of  Nature 
and  the  divine  powers  in  man. 

THE  UNIVERSAL  BROTHERHOOD  AND  THEOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY, 
founded  by  H.  P.  Blavatsky  at  New  York,  1875,  continued  after 
her  death  under  the  leadership  of  the  co-founder,  William  Q. 
Judge,  and  now  under  the  leadership  of  their  successor,  Katherine 
Tingley,  has  its  Headquarters  at  the  International  Theosophical 
Center,  Point  Loma,  California. 

This  Organization  is  not  in  any  way  connected  with  nor  does 
it  endorse  any  other  societies  using  the  name  of  Theosophy. 


THE  UNIVERSAL  BROTHERHOOD  AND  THEOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY, 
welcomes  to  membership  all  who  truly  love  their  fellow  men 
and  desire  the  eradication  of  the  evils  caused  by  the  barriers  of 
race,  creed,  caste  or  color,  which  have  so  long  impeded  human 
progress ;  to  all  sincere  lovers  of  truth  and  to  all  who  aspire 
to  higher  and  better  things  than  the  mere  pleasures  and  interests 
of  a  worldly  life,  and  are  prepared  to  do  all  in  their  power  to 
make  Brotherhood  a  living  energy  in  the  life  of  humanity,  its 
various  departments  offer  unlimited  opportunities. 

The  whole  work  of  the  Organization  is  under  the  direction 
of  the  Leader  and  Official-  Head,  Katherine  Tingley,  as  outlined 
in  the  Constitution. 


Do  not  fail  to  profit  by  the  following: 

It  is  a.  regrettable  fact  that  many  people  use  the  name  of 
Theosophy  and  of  our  Organization  for  self-interest,  as  also 
that  of  H.  P.  Blavatsky  the  Foundress,  to  attract  attention  to 
themselves  and  to  gain  public  support.  This  they  do  in  private 
and  public  speech  and  in  publications,  also  by  lecturing  through 
out  the  country.  Without  being  in  any  way  connected  with  the 
UNIVERSAL  BROTHERHOOD  AND  THEOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY,  in  many 
cases  they  permit  it  to  be  inferred  that  they  are,  thus  misleading 
the  public,  and  many  honest  inquirers  are  hence  led  away  from 
the  truths  of  Theosophy  as  presented  by  H.  P.  Blavatsky  and 
her  successors,  William  Q.  Judge  and  Katherine  Tingley,  and 
practically  exemplified  in  their  Theosophical  work  for  the  uplift 
ing  of  humanity. 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  BROTHERHOOD  LEAGUE 

Founded  in   1897  by  Katharine  Tingley 

ITS    OBJECTS    ARE: 

1.  To  help  men  and  women   to   realize  the  nobility  of  their 
calling  and  their  true  position  in  life. 

2.  To   educate  children   of  all  nations   on   the  broadest   lines 
of  Universal  Brotherhood,  and  to  prepare  destitute  and  homeless 
children  to  become  workers   for  humanity. 

3.  To   ameliorate   the   condition    of   unfortunate   women,   and 
assist   them  to   a   higher   life. 

4.  To  assist  those  who  are,  or  have  been,  in  prisons,  to  es 
tablish  themselves  in  honorable  positions  in  life. 

5.  To  abolish  capital  punishment. 

6.  To  bring  about   a  better   understanding  between   so-called 
savage    and    civilized    races,    by    promoting    a    closer    and    more 
sympathetic  relationship  between  them. 

7.  To  relieve  human   suffering  resulting  from   flood,    famine, 
war,   and   other  calamities;    and,  generally,   to   extend  aid,   help 
and   comfort  to   suffering  humanity  throughout   the   world. 

For  further  information  regarding  the  above  Notices,  address 

KATHERINE  TINGLEY 

INTERNATIONAL  THEOSOPHICAL  HEADQUARTERS, 

POINT  LOMA,  CALIFORNIA 


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